Google gets personal

Posted by Ryszard on the HEXUS.front-page:

If you wander over here with your browser, you can trial a Google Labs application that lets you customise the Google homepage with some added extras, such as a preview of your Gmail email inbox, news and story snippets from the likes of Slashdot and the BBC, local weather and word and quotes of the day.

Many of you will like the Google homepage to be as bare as it currently is and frown at painting the page with new stuff, but depending on whether you find the services useful, the new customised version is well worth a go.

Here's me surfing on my customised version, showing Gmail and some news from the BBC. Doesn't change the aesthetic too much and the top half of the page is old school search goodness.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/rys/google_ig.jpg

Note the Google Taiwan version since I'm in this part of the world for Computex next week. Missed the link above? Here it is again.

I'd like to see more choice on what you can add to the page... any RSS feed, for example.

Yes I configured mine and its not that impressive frankly. I would like to see an area for example that has to do with new posts in google groups that I am a member off...also I dunno why the Google toolbar does not have built in gmail notification along with a notification for new posts on the google groups you post on. Those are 2 pretty important things I think. Also RSS is important as well.

Of course, I'm sure we'll see these things appearing in the near future :)

how do u set that up? (sorry n00b question!)

Follow the link... :P

What I didn't mention in the news post was that you can drag the added items around the page, to place them where you like. Want your Gmail sumary on the right? Pick it up and put it there with the mouse.

It seems that when i have the personal goole home page in my broweser with the gmail preview, my POP email client won't download any mail. Anyone else found this?