Slashdot Mirror
A Peek at Personalized Google
Seoulstriker writes "Sci-tech Today is describing how Google will be offering customized homepages as seen here. Is this one step closer to Google becoming a web portal like Yahoo? Although it is not currently in Beta, it is only available through the Google Labs site. It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now."
I just hope they don't execute Order 66...
One of the links on the story shows up darker than the rest. (For those who don't get it, firefox shows visited slashdot links as darker)
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Would you want it cluttered enough so it could spot the dupe story? I could see that being useful to the lazy editors.
So don't use the personalized webpage, then? Or personalize it so it's simple?
It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now.
Fortunately, you can edit all of the clutter out of the interface, if you want to.
- Have your persistant searches there
- Delicious popular
- Integrate TadaList
It is using tables and shouldn't be to hard to monkey up.If by web portal you mean your first stop on the way to doing something useful, then it already is.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
as long as it's a separate page from the google.com homepage, i'm cool with it.
it's when they stop offering the lightweight search page by default is when it starts to suck.
Dupe anyone???!?!
Dashboard Widgets
Perhaps we should all be trying to submit stories that have already appeared on the front page in an effort to force the editors to scrutinize harder, and maybe, just maybe, it'll stick....
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
http://yagoohoogle.com/
My hacked site
We get personalized Slashdot dupes?
News by Timothy. Stuff that matters... to timothy
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I tried it out and actually like it for the most part. The thing that's particularly nice IMO is that all of the personalized content appears below the search feature so that the top looks more or less like the old Google. The interface seems to be the standard Google through and through and it does a pretty good job of showing you only the stuff you want when you take the time to customize it.
The only thing that they really need to do is add a feature to let you add custom news feeds based on RSS you specify or by creating Google News searches. Good News already lets you add your own categories based on search criteria so My Google needs that too.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Are others getting the Slashdot option? Or is Google spying on me?
And, of course, if I decide I don't like it, I can simply revert back to the simple interface. As long as I can do that, I'm happy.
Anyway, who has time to think about Google when there's Star Wars to think about?!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
But perhaps if I select certain personalised info for my home page, they would have enough information to justify attempting to target ads to me? I actually think it pretty unlikely - it would be an unpopular move, and Google really does no evil. But it must be tempting!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
"They just seem to be everybody's best friend. Google can do no wrong!"
I'm still waiting for my blowjob.
Wow, that's pretty spiffy. I just hope they do something about how cluttered it looks and how uneven the boxes are. Coming soon: Google Bongos! Practice this beloved African instrument from the comfort of your own computer. Fully customizable, the colour of the bongos changes automatically with your mood and interests!
"Or personalize it so it's simple?"
Greasemonkey, anyone?
This seems to be their one and only service that isn't beta. But I don't mind their screwy usage of that term, it all is polished enough for me.
I just hope I can personalize it any way I want, so I can get it to look like this.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
The integration of their other services is what makes this a not-so-hidden gem. I like being able to have my Gmail, Google News and regular Google Search all viewable on the one page. The weather, Slashdot and other news options are an enormous bonus -- as yet, this is replacing my RSS aggregator as all my feeds are on the site.
I like the fact that Google have not lost sight of their original focus: search. Many of the other web portals, like Yahoo or MSN, have all the graphics heavy customisation on the page and then throw their search box in as an afterthought (although this is becoming less obvious).
Google has just a couple of additions to make in order to produce another winning solution: integrated RSS feeds (as someone has already suggested), international weather information (or international versions of the customised page) and the option to put customised search buttons (like the useful Search Linux and Search Uncle Sam) under the search box. That I would like to see.
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."
If you don't like it, don't use it. Google isn't going to make this their default page.
I certainly hope the word of the day is harder than 'aficionado' in the future. I think word of the day should come in four difficulty settings:
/.
1. Unwashed Masses
2. Smarter than average
3. I'm a fucking genius
4. I read
I know with keywords in Safari and Firefox I haven't intentionally visited google's front page in ages.
there's more than one way to do me.
It was never about 'the search' anyhow, was it?
Google should help Slashdot with a technology that would help filter out ridiculous dupes like this one.
I dont much mind if google is trying to be another yahoo as long as they follow yahoos lead and create search.google.com. search.yahoo.com is a none bloated search only version of yahoo for those that never saw it.
I'm puzzled by this "response." Did you respond to the wrong comment? If not your ability to convey ideas needs a lot of work.
Straight from Ars....
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I definitely like the Google personalized homepage, but I can see how many people wouldn't, and I certainly wouldn't want it to become too cluttered like MSN or Yahoo. I like being able to read Slashdot and Google news headlines and preview my gmail. They definitely are on the right track with this one. However, I think that they should keep the default homepage clean and simple as it is now and offer the personalized page only to those that truly want it. I think that one good feature about google products is their simplicity. They should keep it that way.
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said the company is focused on search and is not a Web "portal." A Web portal is a site which offers a range of personalized services on one page.
This is a good move, focus on what they are good at, searching, and build all of their services around it, instead of trying to spread themselves too thin and only being mediocre at everything that they do. seriously good job
Ok, google is either perfect or really really evil.
...or they are just really really good at internet programming
Not the big blundering stupid kind of evil that microsoft is, but the creepy really really bad kind of evil.
Like the kind of evil in that story 'event horizon' where everyone rips their eyes out.
I would like to be able to personalize my google start page but I do not want anyone in my job to somehow have access to my gmail account at work.
"I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now." Well, I guess that's why it's completely customizable. You can put what you want where you want it, including putting nothing there... though I find the Slashdot module quite nice (that's how I found this story). With Slashdot, Google News, Gmail, and Google Search on one page, I've got 90% of the stuff I ever use right in front of me as soon as I start my browser. Couldn't be better.
It gets a thumbs-up from me, for sure.
What I would like more is if they introduced little "templates" so to speak. Different setups, if you will. So instead of having those big columns spread across the bottom I could have them in small boxes along the side or something. I'm sure Google will keep advancing the customization options as time goes on...
We're back to the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation here.
With the amount of new technology and features in search engines today, their original purpose is becoming less and less efficient.
For example: on my old Google v0.1, I pushed the 'Down' button until I found the search engine box I wanted, then I typed in my search term and pressed the 'Go' button and it found my term. No difficulties there.
On my new, all-singing-all-dancing Google monstrosity, I must look for the search box, whisk past 'News' and 'Camera' to find 'Search', type in my search term, then press 'Go'.
I can grasp that some people want to be able to read the headlines and check the weather, send that information to their friends, read the news while searching, etc etc etc... Now, in this technologically oriented world, we are inundated with sites that do one job supremely well -- I had a Google for search, a Yahoo for webmail, a BBC for news.. Why is finding a site that just searches such a difficulty?
Certainly given the building blocks currently on offer, I don't really see a need for it.
I have the Gmail Reminder to prompt me to new mail and give me a single click into it. What's the point in having just a few of your emails on a search engine homepage anyway? I don't ever even go to the Google homepage to perform a search as I do it directly from my address bar.
I can sign up for BBC news alerts or read them in RSS format via an aggregator if I want to. In this day and age of information gathering, with so many options available to us to group together the things we want quick and easy access to (even if it's just half a dozen, easily accessible bookmarks!), I don't really understand the point in displaying them all on a page that many people don't habitually visit.
I personally like Google's personalised home pages. It has all the information I could want, (weather, Google News, BBC News, Stock Quotes, Word of the day, and Quote of the day), in a nice, neat, and clean interface. I personally hope Google makes this a feature of the main site. I actually like it much better than Yahoo!
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needed a token Google story today to fill our quota for Google stories this week. Way to go team!
Why cut IT when your office space costs $3/sf? gibso
I love My Yahoo! I also love my Gmail. I think this customized Google page is a great start but it's simply not there yet. Yes, the interface is nice simple Google, but I think in this day and age with RSS and broadband, it's a little too simple, boring and frankly not enough features for me. I do like how easy it is to customize though.
It really does feel to me like it's a start, and not ready for primetime. This is what a portal was 5 years ago.
I really do have high hopes for this though. It's Google. Yahoo! isn't shaking in its boots just yet.
I set up my personalized Google home page. I like it a lot. I don't know if I'll keep it because generally I like the uncluttered look of the standard Google Home page. But, take a look, your mileage may vary!
Some of the nice features:
Since this isn't even really Beta yet, I'm guessing (am almost sure) there'll be lots of improvements to this -- and probably most of the improvements address many of the "complaints" posted thus far. (I've found Google to be amazing in their willingness to listen to and respond to and take action on feedback from the consumer community.)
So, before you go ranting about the corruption of what was simple and is now crass, take a look... you may find it useful.
It seems that they have made a pretty obvious mistake here.
If you sign into your account and choose slashdot, and leave the default of 3 stories, it will only show 1. Editing your choice by changing it from 3 to another number and back again will display the correct number of stories.
The same problem exists for google news.
Can I add other news sources or feeds?
Not yet, but stay tuned. We chose the currently available feeds for this beta release of personalized homepages in order to give a good sampling of content from across the web [...]
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
It is strange that it doesn't work if you are not in the locale of US. You can't get your gmail (the language must be English-US, not even English-UK), your weather and surely not your news.
The first thing that jumps into my mind when I hear personalization is Localization. Google must work first on making it truly localized.
Come on people, this thing has few consequences for nerds. I haven't used Google's search page in ages... I only look at it when they change the image on holidays or on special birthdays and such. The rest of the time I have this nifty little textfield incorporated in the browser's interface.
Yahoo jumped the shark with the scale of their advertising. Nobody minds ads but with 50% or more covered with some horrendous flash, it doesn't really look good.
See my journal, I write things there
...a master and a dupe.
Sorry that stinks...
But then again I think the Google logo is overdoing it.
I just hope when they roll it out they keep the "classic" page available for those of us who don't want personalisation.
And rest assured one day all the personal information that Google are collecting (search histories, emails) WILL be put to nefarious ends. The only question is how long will it take for the "bad guys" (tm) to take control.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
even search.yahoo.com is still slower due to URL redirections in each link of the search result page
I checked it out right when they started it, but I was disappointed because it didn't work with Google Suggest, ehich I use regularly. But looking yesterday, they seem to have extended support to Google Suggest. It doesn't display my modules, but it does provide a link in the upper right corner to visit my page.
It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now.
It is more convinient to use the browser's google search bar, than google.com itself. Perhaps, google can provide the simple version at google.com/simple, while retaining the portal version at google.com- srid
I'm sure for the 90% of the population that use I.E., including the 0.001% of /. readers that use I.E., it is a useful addition, but really, for the kinda guy that will take advantage of this feature, they just won't use it
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
I always turn JS off when not needed. For safety and faster rendering.
And now I learn it skims useless redirections. Good.
...non vi sed saepe cadendo. - or so I hope: that the little drops of water of our opinions may hollow the O's in gOOgle by slowly cutting through the bedrock.
/. is primarily populated by an experienced and therefore rather demanding type of Internet user. Some of us may use text browsers (lynx), have slow machines (retro rlz!) or slow connections: many of us have reasons beyond mere appreciation for valuing the speed and easy use of Google's search engine.
......
Don't fix it if it ain't Error 404!
I suspect that some of Google's decide&do-crowd are Slashdotters, will read these comments, and prove to be sensitive to the opinions of their fellow Net browsers.
Glancing at the previous comments, I note that most of us prefer the uncluttered aspect of the search engine's Status Quo to the proposed kind of offer-it-all Portal: as do I.
Presumably,
If we prefer the uncluttered, fast-loading and fast-handling Google we've been used to (some of us, for as long as Google's IP has been returning pings), I can only presume that less experienced and less demanding Internet users, hardly likely to suddenly wish to navigate through a labyrinth of links, chunks of text, images and what-have-you, should prefer the same.
I hope * at google dot com will read these here comments, and know how to interpret them for Google's best interest.
From the heart, Google: a KISS * !! Keep It Simple
* Signal 15... "Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam." Cheers cq. BRgds: DrS aka UNIXmafia@ribeco.net