Photo by Luca Conti
My bookmarks are out of control. There are so many good websites and blogs out there–and I bookmark them all. One of my favourite activities is to follow links and see where I end up. Happily bookmarking as I go. The only problem now is that it’s easier to find something in a search engine than it is in my bookmarks.
I considered starting over, but then it dawned on me that I should check out something that I’ve been ignoring–the personal homepage. Also known as the start page, personal portal, personal page, personal start page, personal web portal, or personal news aggregator. There are many names for it, but I’ll stick with personal homepage.
These are the customizable pages that look like newspapers and that you set up with such things as the weather in your area, local news, stock reports, traffic reports, widgets, gadgets, and whatever other feeds that strike your fancy.
RSS or Atom Feeds
There is so much more to feeds than I had imagined. Besides blogs, you can get feeds from many forums, websites, alerts, readers, email, bookmarking sites, news sites, press release searches, blog search engines, article sites (by subject or author)–and I’m sure many other sources I haven’t found yet.
Multiple Homepage Tabs
Much to my delight I also learned that the personal homepage is not restricted to just one page. You can set up multiple tabs. This is so cool. Set up a tab for each area you need to keep track of and fill them with relevant feeds. Then set up each one with a different design theme so they have their own unique identity.
Homepage Options
Some of the options for a personal homepage are iGoogle, My Yahoo, My MSN, Pageflakes, My AOL, Netvibes, and My Zooloo. I tried the first four of these and was happy with them all. They all offer basically the same capabilities. Originally, I decided to stick with iGoogle because I use several other Google applications. But then I tried Pageflakes and was quite struck with it. So I will use them both for a while and then decide.
Continually coming up with new things to write about can be a challenge. Not to mention keeping up to date with your own particular field and niche. But bury yourself in information and it only gets worse. It’s important to choose some main sources that are relevant and that you feel comfortable with and then follow those closely. When you need something that’s not covered there then surf away.
Your personal home/start/portal/aggregator page awaits and it’s hungry. Feed it! And then feed your mind.
What other feeds can you find to add to homepages?
Update [June 8, 2010] Pageflakes has been having some significant downtime problems – days at a time in some cases. I’m not sure how long Netvibes has been around, but I have just discovered it and am giving it a try. It seems to be another great alternative. Deb
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