Google unveils personalized home page

By agencies   |   Friday, 20 May 2005, 19:30 IST
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MOUNTAIN VIEW: Google unveiled personalized home page moving in a direction rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp’s MSN portal have already have drafted. The new personalized home page adds other already available Google features, such as its e-mail service Gmail, news, weather, stocks, driving directions, movie listings and the like While Google has long said it had no interest in becoming a portal and luring users to spend much of their Internet time on the Google site, its move puts it in even more direct competition with Yahoo and Microsoft, among others. Director of consumer Web products for Google, Marissa Mayer said, "We really hope to have this not necessarily be a platform, but rather to help users navigate the Web better," Google said it also offers a broad inclusion of content, such as the BBC, the New York Times, tech news Website Slashdot, Quote of the Day and Word of the Day. Google will offer the capability for the personalized Google page to add universal RSS feeds in a month or two. RSS stands for really simple syndications, which lets users aggregate multiple news and information sources onto a single display on their PCs, Mayer said.