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Google's New Personalized Homepage

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the putting-it-all-together dept.

jgaynor writes "Citing user requests to coalesce its disparate services, Google today released its new personalized homepage service. It allows you to arrange your Gmail, Google News, Google Maps driving directions, weather and a few select news services (including Slashdot) on a single page. Future plans include Universal RSS support. Clearly a shot at existing services like My Yahoo."

89 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. It was just about time by puiahappy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was waiting for this moment for a lot of time. Google have so many features, but it was missing the page that put them all together. Have a directory, stock market feeds, dedicate search for Linux, email, free blog and lots more ... Oh yeah and don`t forget about google adsense and adwords

    --
    Think like a hacker, act like a hacker, but never become a hacker !
    1. Re:It was just about time by Omnieiunium · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have to agree. I would love to be able access all that information on my homepage. I visit Slashdot, GMail, and Google about 100000 times a day so it would be nice with them all in one little place. I hail the Google-Overlords.

  2. One page to rule them all... by null+etc. · · Score: 4, Funny
    One page to bind them.

    Seriously, I guess Google just got a new lease on life, considering it's supposed to die in 5 years, according to Microsoft.

    1. Re:One page to rule them all... by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, Microsoft at least it already has a aquivalent with a javascript RSS reader and everything, so Microsoft seems to be "ahead" in this case: http://www.start.com/1/

    2. Re:One page to rule them all... by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh and http://www.start.com/2/default.aspx for the version 2, etc

    3. Re:One page to rule them all... by mesach · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually I thought it should read

      and in the whitespace bind them.

      --
      moo.
    4. Re:One page to rule them all... by sathia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i think they should call it "own page", sounds like "home page" but it's your own page.

      --
      one bug, one crash
    5. Re:One page to rule them all... by emilymildew · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do ANY of these "portal" sites offer something that we can't all whip up in a few minutes with HTML/CSS?

      I'm very glad you can do better; some people would prefer to spend their time using the information rather than getting things set up to see it. That isn't meant to be mean.

  3. There it is! by jackcarter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The start of the cluttered Yahoo-like interface. the fact that Google is clean and white is the reason most people flocked to it at first. At least the customization means that I can make it what I want.

    1. Re:There it is! by Stibidor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I believe the "cluttered Yahoo-like interface" is somewhat popular.

      Google is still "clean and white" if you leave the "/ig" off the end of the URL.

      And yes, you can make it what you want. :)

      --
      http://nerdfortress.com/
    2. Re:There it is! by bob+whoops · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the FAQ:

      6. Why did you mess up the clean, crisp Google homepage?

      We didn't. If you want to keep using the original Google homepage, you can. In fact, we expect that many users will. The personalized homepage is for those users who want to see more of the information that matters to them in the same place. You can always switch back and forth between your personalized homepage and the original Google homepage by clicking "Classic Home" or "Personalized Home."

    3. Re:There it is! by Monkeman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I like it, specifically because it's "underwhelming" and "far behind" the atrocity that is My Yahoo. It runs off of a cookie, you don't need an account and it's still nice and minimalistic. Also: am I the only one who spent like five minutes putting each module on the page and dragging them around?

    4. Re:There it is! by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hopefully, they take it the rest of the way and incorpoate groups-beta.
      Google could go the full Yahoo! monty, and have an interface that looks like "an Australian's nightmare", but I'd be very surprised.
      They seem to grasp the strategic non-value of such a turdberg.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    5. Re:There it is! by hazem · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not the clutter per se that bothers me at Yahoo. It's all the friggin flashing, blinking, and pop-up ads.

      As for google... if they want to put all the stuff I like on one page, more power to them. Just don't clutter it with flashing, blinking, epileptic-fit-inducing ads.

    6. Re:There it is! by Snarfy · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm sorry - have you ever looked at the actual link? No, not the text in the status bar, but the actual link.

      Here is what a search for slashdot says in the status bar:
      http://slashdot.org/

      Here is what the link actually is (copy link location, paste to text editor)
      http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http%3A// slashdot.org/&ei=nj-NQobLM7GUaPaJ0XA

      So yes, they do in fact track what you click.

    7. Re:There it is! by Michalson · · Score: 4, Informative

      Tracking on the normal search page is done a little differently (though perhaps they just have some server side code that returns different methods based on browser). As you know, account or no account, all Google pages attempt to implant a "never expires" cookie that has a unique ID if a unique ID is not already found on your system. The ID is used to allow Google to associate all requests with you (and if you have an account, multiple computers can be tied to a single person/ID).

      For the regular search, rather then using a redirect script, it seems to use onmousedown javascript (in this way the link you click is a "direct" link to the URL). The mousedown script causes your webbrowser to load a hidden image (which is really a tracking image, the kind used by spammers in their email to report back to them). If you examine the javascript it sends the link you clicked, your unique ID, the position on the page the link was ("1" for the first link and so on) and two type parameters (ct="res" and sa="T") encoded as the URL for the fake image.

    8. Re:There it is! by Plaid+Phantom · · Score: 2, Funny

      Five Minutes!? Develop your stamina, man!

      --
      All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
    9. Re:There it is! by Michalson · · Score: 4, Informative

      Very interesting. I was right, Google seems to have have multiple formats for what visually looks like the same result page. The underlying format determines if and how Google tracks your clicks. One factor that may play a part is the date - the unique ID in the cookie includes a checksummed date of when the ID was created. Some Google features (like the book excerpts) have already been shown to check this date and give different results based on whether your cookie appears to be an existing cookie, or if it appears that you just created it a short time ago. It would take some time to verify, but I would hypothize Google only starts including link tracking code once the cookie is old enough to mark you as a legitimate or otherwise worthwhile user.

    10. Re:There it is! by tylernt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Isn't this the way that Google improves search results and updates PageRank etc? By tracking which links get clicked?

      If Google didn't track anything, their search algorythms would probably be a lot less efficient because they wouldn't be able to tell which of the search results were the ones that users found relevent.

      --
      DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
    11. Re:There it is! by sik0fewl · · Score: 5, Funny

      Are you kidding?? I can't wait until this page gets an RSS feed!

      Useless trivia: that page is actually the #1 hit (on Google, of course) for "seizure"

      --
      I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
    12. Re:There it is! by Threni · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's no `next` link on the new GoogleGroups beta. I emailed them about it but apparantly it's not supposed to have a `next` link anymore. There used to be little coloured squares on the left, which were highlighted to show you which 10 articles you were looking at. Google didn't say anything about them.

      So, apparantly, if you go, say, here:

      http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.music.clas sical.contemporary/browse_frm/thread/8c01cd56d2a8c 13b/79e012624c34669d#79e012624c34669d

      and scroll down to the bottom of the 10 articles, the way to see the next page of 10 articles is to randomly click on the frame on the left until you find what you think is the article that's being displayed on the right, then scroll down on the page to the bottom, look at the posters name, look back to the left, try and find the relevant post (tricky if there are more than one post by the same person)...

      Am I missing something here? Click on that link and tell me how to get to the next page. Bear in mind that on the old Google Groups system, and Deja News before it, you just clicked a `next` link, once.

    13. Re:There it is! by Sandor+at+the+Zoo · · Score: 2, Informative
      ...far behind My Yahoo

      I agree. On my Yahoo page I have stock graphs (not just the quotes that Google gives you), mortgage rates, and news feeds hand-chosen from the wide variety that yahoo has listed.

      I might be able to fake up some of these with tailored google searches, but why should I have to?

      Also, I can't order the stock quotes the way I want; they're ordered the way google wants. :-(

      I do like the layout dragging. Very nice.

      Hopefully google will add more stuff to make the homepage more flexible.

  4. greeeeeeeaaaat by dmf415 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Would be even nicer if i can integrate my yahoo mail too! ;-)

    1. Re:greeeeeeeaaaat by brogdon · · Score: 2, Informative

      " Would be even nicer if i can integrate my yahoo mail too! ;-)"

      That's easy. Just create a Gmail account, and set your Yahoo mail to automatically forward everything there.

      I like helping people.

      --


      This tagline is umop apisdn.
    2. Re:greeeeeeeaaaat by shird · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thatd be well and good if Yahoo didn't rape this feature out of its services (.com addresses). its gone. thanks guys. If you had told me this was a possiblity when I signed up you can be sure I never would have.

      --
      I.O.U One Sig.
    3. Re:greeeeeeeaaaat by siriuskase · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because Gmail won't let me do basic things, like put my own, real address in the "From:" line. They allow "Reply-to:", but it looks so 90s, and Reply-To doesn't work in all mailers.

      You got to think asynchrously. Read your mail with GMail, but use a mail program on your own machine to send mail. Then you can use any address you want, preferably one you can forward to Gmail.

      This gives you the bottomless archive for your messages that you can assess anywhere in the world, plus the ability to compose messages in a more powerful editor, even do it offline if you'd like.

      If you like reading mail with something other than the GMail web interface, they've got pop access, too.

      Oh dear, I'm starting to sound like an ad, they should send me a check.

      --
      If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
    4. Re:greeeeeeeaaaat by pediddle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It may look so 90s, but Reply-To only doesn't work in mailers from the 80s!

      (Feel free to correct me by naming one in which it doesn't work.)

    5. Re:greeeeeeeaaaat by hritcu · · Score: 2, Informative

      set your Yahoo mail to automatically forward everything there.
      Are you sure that forwarding is free on Yahoo?

      Mail Plus
      Get personalized spam filtering with SpamGuard Plus, 2GB storage, 20MB message size, no graphical ads, POP access and forwarding, and more great features for just $19.99/year - that's less than $2/month.

      --
      If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
  5. More commentary... by RichM · · Score: 4, Informative

    More coverage at Google Blogoscoped.
    I submitted this story about 30 mins ago but it looks like someone beat me to it.

  6. Uses Gmail Accounts by RaffiRai · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Awesome. You don't need to sign up for another account if use Gmail. Good stuff.

    1. Re:Uses Gmail Accounts by RichM · · Score: 4, Informative

      You never needed to anyway, the Google Accounts sign-in is a central login which gives you access to GMail, Groups, Video and everything else.

    2. Re:Uses Gmail Accounts by Jussi+K.+Kojootti · · Score: 2, Funny

      You can get anywhere with that! Maybe they should call it Google Passport!

  7. Notice the differences though by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    between google and yahoo. Google's is clean and compact while yahoo's is all over the place. People want simplicity and when so much information is displayed at once like on lots of portals, it's difficult to find anything.

    1. Re:Notice the differences though by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Informative

      You obviously have not looked at yahoo for a while. Google is cleaner but displays less and their colour scheme chould do with some work. The edit option displays very poorly against a similar shade background.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    2. Re:Notice the differences though by pipingguy · · Score: 2, Funny


      The "!" in Yahoo keeps me from considering it as a serious organization, nevermind the backwoods, redneck exclamation connotations it tends to evoke (not to mention the multiple cookies set).

      I'm much more comfortable with a made-up word like "Google".

    3. Re:Notice the differences though by JasontheMason · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Google is cleaner but displays less and their colour scheme chould do with some work.

      It looks to me pretty much like the 'Google Blue' they use on their search results pages. Personal preference, of course, but I just think it looks like Google.

      The edit option displays very poorly against a similar shade background.

      It would be my personal inclination to design them that way. It's there when you need it, when you need it you can see it, but otherwise it's less obtrusive. I don't plan on changing things around more than a couple times a week, and for that it is plenty visible. The rest of the time it presents no visual distraction from the things I want to see. This is probably a very nit-picky sort of point, though.

      --
      "Ad infinitem et ultra!" - Buzz Lightyear
  8. WTF by The+Bungi · · Score: 3, Informative
    The nice thing about this is that it talks to GMail via something else to create the preview so it gets around proxy blocks.

    I still can't actually read messages, but I can see if I have something that requires immediate attention instead of waiting until I get home.

  9. Anyone else note the GoogleDot effect? by MrAnnoyanceToYou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of like nine options total is to see slashdot's news items. Strange? Not really. Suspicious? Yeah, kinda. I mean, why would Slashdot be picked among all the tech news sites out there....?

    --
    My little site.
    1. Re:Anyone else note the GoogleDot effect? by EnronHaliburton2004 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because they're trying to appeal to geeks who want to try cutting edge technology first?

      Maybe it's a reciprocal agreement. If Slashdot uses a Google News Story several times a day, Google will link to Slashdot?

      --
      94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
    2. Re:Anyone else note the GoogleDot effect? by kristopher · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's simple really. CowboyNeal is having an affair with google. That has to be it. Everything is coming together now. I wonder if he'll leak out the video tape Paris Hilton style. That would be awesome. I so want to be CowboyNeal, unless of course he ends up with some kind of google std.

      .. Who am I kidding, you know I'd still hit it.

    3. Re:Anyone else note the GoogleDot effect? by Tribbin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      1. Because it matters.
      2. Because that is the first thing the programmers wanted in it.
      3. Save slashdot a whole lot of (CTRL+R) page requests.
      4. Because we are the first to know about this customized page, for sure.

      --
      If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
    4. Re:Anyone else note the GoogleDot effect? by MrNonchalant · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My friends have been asking me for something that could add Gmail and news headlines to the Google homepage. I saw a Slashdot post requesting the same thing, and someone wrote back: if you want that feature, do it yourself and whip up some code or scrape the data. Of course, why would my friends spend any time hacking this together when they could just get me to do it for them? - Brian Singerman, Software engineer on the Google Blog posting about the new portal.

      Somehow I think this explains it.

    5. Re:Anyone else note the GoogleDot effect? by kavau · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Despite all conspiracy theories, I think the reason is simply that the programmers who implemented the customized homepage are avid Slashdot readers.

  10. It has slashdot by endx7 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Even has slashdot as one of the things you can put on it.

    At least they didn't put this on the main front page. Stuff like this tends to be cluttered, and I dislike clutter.

  11. Custom defaults by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I really like this look and feel.

    However, I would personally like a standard default available so that I don't have a different looking homepage just after clearing internet cache/cookies etc.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  12. Global Domination by OiITMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well personally I'm happy that Google keeps trying harder and harder to become the all-encompasing mega corp that we all need to place our faith in... An I for one welcome... eh.

    --
    This is the opinion of The Oi Group's IT guy, not of The Oi Group. It's probably complete nonesense anyway.
  13. Whoa, custom by ecliptik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I love how you can customize it, it can even pull stories from slashdot (although it lags a bit, for instance this story hasn't shown up yet).

    If you don't like how they're arranged, just click and drag the boxes around, really truely awesome use of DHTML.

    My one gripe is with the gmail integration, when you open a message it looks a bit kludgy, and from there if you try and the inbox link at the top you get a "grrr! you have a popup blocker" message. Note that I'm using Firefox here, and from how FF friendly they are you think this wouldn't be an issue, oh well, it still rocks.

    1. Re:Whoa, custom by bob+whoops · · Score: 3, Informative

      (although it lags a bit, for instance this story hasn't shown up yet).

      Blame Slashdot. The RSS hasn't updated yet.

  14. Strange... by rainman_bc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know a lot of users who switched to Google for its simplicity.

    Remember Excite, Hotbot, Lycos, Infoseek, and Altavista all used to look like Yahoo.

    Then Google started to kick ass and everyone moved away from that format to a minimalistic approach.

    No google is trying to become Yahoo? I'm going dizzy just thinking about it...

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  15. One thing left out. by DarkProphet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pretty nice. The clean drag 'n drop and edit stuff is good. One thing I would have liked to have seen is a 'generic' RSS box instead of one specifically for /.

    Maybe they'll get around to that.

    --
    What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
  16. Gmail opened up?? by mastropiero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just browsed through these pages, and saw the registration link for gmail. WTF??

  17. Pretty weak so far by prostoalex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The interface is nice and clean, but it's still not My Yahoo!

    - No outside RSS feeds, so can't add anything beyond pre-selected sources
    - No user-selected color coding, so semantically the boxes are barely distinguishable
    - Small things, like inability to select a subset of Google news, not just top stories

    All fixable, and it's obviously a beta, but it's surprisingly a really raw beta.

    1. Re:Pretty weak so far by Bullet-Dodger · · Score: 3, Funny

      - Doesn't have a big flash-ad at the top.

  18. Re:W00t!!! by conteXXt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ahem!

    gLinux!

    Please!?!?!?

    --
    The truth about Led Zep should never be told on /. (Karma suicide ensues)
  19. Didn't you know? by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot is world famous. A roving random distributed denial of service attack before which web, network and systems administrators alike quake and have terrible nightmares about.

    How many other tech news sites can claim that?

    --
    Deleted
  20. OMG!! by lortho · · Score: 5, Funny

    You guys... seriously... it's Google... they released a product... that's non-beta... seriously, you guys, come quick!!!

  21. OT: Contraction translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    First sentence:

    Citing user requests to coalesce it is disparate services, Google today released it is new personalized homepage service.
    Remember, "It's 'its', not 'it's'."

    Or, just read Bob the Angry Flower's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots (his words, not mine!). I mean, sheeh, twice in the first sentence? You idiot. (My words, not his!)

  22. DRAG AND DROP!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    this is one of the most amazing web interface's i've ever seen. google has done some remarkable work with gmail and maps.google.com and this is even better.

    it would be nice if someone could make a toolkit for php or whatever to make web interfaces that are as rich as regular app interfaces. Qt for the web!!

  23. The Google service I'd like to see is... by vocaro · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... http://grammar.google.com/

    coalesce it's disparate services -->
    coalesce its disparate services

    released it's new personalized homepage service -->
    released its new personalized homepage service

  24. The UK version is broken by Pete+(big-pete) · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you go to http://www.google.co.uk/ig/customize then try to set and save your settings, you'll find that it's pretty broken...

    It seems to send the page into a loop...in IE you will just receive continuous warnings that you are being redirected to an nonsecure page.

    -- Pete.

    --
    Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
    1. Re:The UK version is broken by Pete+(big-pete) · · Score: 2, Informative

      Purge your cookies and see how it's fixed again. :)

      Thanks, I had to do it a couple of times, because if I just tried to log in with my profile, it would try the UK version again and get broken again, but once I went back through the process of setting up the page it worked fine!

      Cheers,

      -- Pete.

      --
      Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
  25. Re:UGLY - CLUTTERED - DISAPPOINTING by supersling · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, I hadn't. I thought that it was just a link to regular Yahoo. Yahoo Search doesn't look have bad, I'll have to give it a try. Do you think that there was any Google influence in their design?

  26. Saved searches from a long time ago resurface. by H01M35 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The first thing that jumped out at me once I personalized my googlepage was that /lots/ of saved searches from a long time ago showed up in a drop down from the search bar.

    Hopefully for the rest of you your googlepage doesn't fall into the wrong hands. If people were to find out what you had been searching for, how would they feel? How would you feel?

    Heck, I felt a bit violated and it was only /me/ that saw them.

  27. grrrr by judd · · Score: 3, Funny
    When will Google strip annoying extraneous apostrophes?

    Its != it's

    Thank you.

  28. Just like Yahoo, except... by FuzzyFox · · Score: 2, Funny

    When is the Google Instant Messenger coming out?

    --
    splunge (n) -- A good idea.. but it could be lousy... and I'm not being indecisive!
    1. Re:Just like Yahoo, except... by kertong · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://www.hello.com/

  29. Formatted by Jaiwithani · · Score: 5, Funny

    Googleweiss, Googleweiss,
    Every morning you greet me,
    Small and white,
    clean and bright,
    Works in Gecko and IE.

    Don't be complex
    Just search and index,
    Don't be evil forever,
    Googleweiss, Googleweiss,
    Bless my homepage forever.

    --
    By the time you've rhymed one line, I've already busted ten; You rap in exponential time and I'm big-O of log(n).
  30. Redirection loop by kbahey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, I clicked on the link in the article, and was able to setup a page and customize it.

    I then visited Google Canada's home page, and added /ig to it and tried to do the same, and ran into a redirection loop (seems google.ca tried to redirect to google.com, which tries to redirect to google.ca, ad infinitum...

    Now neither /ig pages work at all. I had to clear all the cookies to get back to one page that works.

    Hey Google guys! I know that some of you are reading this. Please fix it.

    --
    2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
  31. Search for search; home page for news by jfengel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use My Yahoo as my home page. It gives me the news, weather, and other miscellaneous stuff. I check it a few dozen times a day, whenever I want to connect with what's going on.

    I use Google to search.

    At this point, a "Personalized Google" home page wouldn't be a reaplcement for Google, and in fact they shouldn't take up half the front page with a search bar. It would be a replacement for My Yahoo. When I want to search, I'll search. When I want to know what's going on, I'll hit my personal page.

    What I see of Perssonalized Google Home Page isn't taking me away from My Yahoo yet, especially since I use neither Yahoo mail nor GMail. (Not that I have anything against gmail; I just own my own domain and use that instead.) I like My Yahoo's collection of news better, which is funny because Google News has all the ones I could possibly want.

    But if they keep at it, combine the maturity of My Yahoo with Google's fancy Javascript and good instincts for non-evil features, and it may not be long before I abandon My Yahoo entirely.

  32. Too bad... by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...it'll be gone in 5 years. Oh well, I'm sure MSN will have something to replace it.

    --
    Do you have ESP?
  33. One improvement to decrease clutter by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Would be to have a "dismiss" link for the Word of the day and Quote of the day entries so they can be made to go away but automatically reappear again tomorrow.

    I quite like them, but after I've absorbed them I don't need to have them cluttering up the page for the rest of the day.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    1. Re:One improvement to decrease clutter by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why suggest it here? Put it in as feedback to Google. They act on feedback, you know.

      --
      Comment of the year
  34. I find it really neat... by tommertron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That they included Slashdot in the news services. Right up there with the New York Times and Wired News. All stuff that I read, and pretty cool that Google reads them too!

    --
    Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
  35. This is my new home page. No, I'm serious. by MsGeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am positively loving this. I've previously used my Yahoo account because it has everything I need when I'm traveling, or when I'm using the computers at school. I can also set it up with a two-column format that is friendly for my Original Recipe iBook. Yes I know you can also do that in Yahoo but it's just not as elegant.

    I could use a link to Google Maps, My Google Groups and some sort of bookmark storage scheme, but this will do for now.

    Oh yeah, it loads really, really quickly too.

    Call me a Google fangirl, but this rocks.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
  36. why slashdot is so special to google by desiderius7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As I scanned through the critical discussion of this new compilation of services by Google, I realized how calculated their marketing efforts are. It now seems quite probable that there are any number of Google employees currently tracking this thread on Slashdot. A free analysis by one of the most vocal net cultures of geeks (and n00bs)!

  37. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where's the Beta?

  38. You WILL be able to (supposedly) by jgaynor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I listened to a few hours of the stockholder briefing. Some guy in the audience actually had the gaul to ask if he could use his Yahoo Mail with this new service. Bryn deferred to the PR chick who announced this - SHE SAID YES. As in 'yes we're in talks with other vendors to get 'hooks' to display their mail services'.

    Bottom line? Google's got balls. They repeatedly stressed that they dont track user statistics by services crossover or hits per person, but by user utility. The fact that they would allow and even per-emptively OFFER access to offsite mail shows that they're not just pulling our legs about that mantra . . .

  39. GoogleScript by etheriel · · Score: 3, Insightful
    We're always going to dissatisfied with some aspect of these kind of personalized homepages - because ultimately our options a limited to their imagination. So, what if google created some kind of rss/html/etc. aware scripting language that let us *really* personalize our homepage? (ok, maybe a reduced version of some existing scripting language would be better.)

    I'd like to open my google-homepage and see if anyone has replied to my comments on slashdot/some random forum/etc; I'd also like to use a small chunk of my gmail storage to synchronize my bookmarks to, then display a bookmarks browser on my google-homepage. So why can't i hack these things together? Half the reason I'm not switching back to ie when it finally gets tabbed browsing (the feature that originally attracted me to firefox), is that i'd miss all my old plugins. if google could pull of some kind of system like i've just described, i'm sure a lot of their use base will be sticking with them for a while.

  40. Tell them yourself? by Shazow · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or you can just tell them yourself:

    http://www.google.com/support/fusionph/bin/request .py

    - shazow

  41. Laughable Implementation by G1aucon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sorry folks, but Google has fallen waaaaay short here. This is nothing to get excited about yet. I seriously doubt that the Yahoo! bashers here on /. have used MyYahoo! more than 20 minutes in the last two years. It offers a hell of a lot more, and it is totally customizable.

    And I am by no means anti-Google. Google Maps is a killer app. Gmail is a super-slick email interface. But the Google portal so far is really quaint. If you thinking I'm kidding, check out Yahoo! on the Wayback Machine, circa 1998.

  42. TV show module by hahn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You know what would be a KILLER idea? If you could list what TV shows or TYPES of TV shows your interested in, and then it lists when they're showing in the next week with a countdown of how long before the show begins (kinda like when bidding is going to end E-Bay style) and whether it's a new episode or re-run. If you want to browse what's coming up in the next 3 hours, it would list shows according to the CURRENT time and based on what you've been interested in before or based on your ratings of a show (Tivo thumbs up/down style).

    It would be MUCH better than the cluttered and space wasting TV Guide-style TV listing that Yahoo currently uses. The Yahoo one is also frustrating in that it's not smart about the time listing it shows. It can be 10 am and it will still show you the 8-11 pm prime time block. Even on weekends.

    --
    "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
  43. Re:Technical Hitch for the Australian Version by Darwin_Frog · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't feel bad, the Canadian page is doing the same thing. And everyone knows that you have to work to dislike Canadians...

  44. I just wish they'd finally use... by Nailer · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...the nice user interface with proper tabs for Firefox clients.

    Seriously, it's so much nicer than having the page reload when you click another tab. Why doesn't the FF start page use this?

  45. Perpetuum Mobile by should_be_linear · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google has homepage link to Slashdot stories about Google.

    --
    839*929
  46. Pretty fast update by rathehun · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Had a message in my inbox.

    Checked it out in T-Bird.

    Go to FF. Hit Reload. Message gone.

    Bloody fast.

    R.

  47. Re:Doesn't work for google.co.uk by JaF893 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Even if I change the redirection limit in Firefox to 99999 it still doesn't work.

  48. Re:Google is by cspring007 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    and properly done it. And, somehow, they make a whole lot of money doing it.
    Not only are they kicking everone else's large scale web development ass, they look GOOD doing it.

  49. AdBlock by empaler · · Score: 2, Informative

    Link

    I love that extension.

  50. Takes A Long Time for /. Stories to Show Up by ras_b · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love this new customize google since i use a lot of the features separately, but it takes a long time for /. stories to be updated. As of this posting (8:40 am eastern) the latest /. headline still hasn't shown up (BSA Reacts to 'New' BitTorrent Posted by CowboyNeal on Fri May 20, 07:54 AM) that's almost an hour lag. since most /.ers refresh slash every 5 minutes, that's no good.