Get your own webpage

Cricket updates: check. News: check. Bookmarks: check. Notepad: check. Web chat: check. Horoscope: check. It may sound like a potpourri but is just a description of what goes into making a personalised homepage that is being promoted passionately by the who’s who of the web world — namely, Yahoo, Google, Rediff and MSN. These homepages, which can be defined as personal newspapers, give all the information in one single window. And even though most of these portals have been around for a while, it’s only of late that they have upped the ante on the personalisation front.

So, if www.iGoogle.com, Google’s attempt to offer you calendars and to-do-lists made sense, My Yahoo will double up as a TV guide as well as a weather forecaster. Not to forget Microsoft’s MSN, which also throws up similar options. In particular, if you had any complaints about having to click your mouse too many times to get to Yahoo Mail, then Yahoo’s personalised page should solve this problem. Users get a preview of the inbox along with their daily dose of horoscopes, casual games, news, Bollywood gossip and an array of easy-to-add applications. MyYahoo can be a great choice as either a primary start page or an alternative to the main Yahoo page.

But Sakshi Gupta, a business analyst, puts her money on www.iGoogle.com. “I think it’s fantastic,” she says. According to Gupta, its best feature is that you can add a box for any blog that you want to follow. As for the negatives, she claims it has none. If you have used Google, you will know that there is a lot of empty space on the main Google page under the search box. iGoogle allows you to fill this with handy gadgets like crossword puzzles or headlines from your favourite newspaper, calendar, a clock, or even a Gtalk gadget.

My Yahoo scores on its fresh and uncluttered look. “You just have to place the mouse over it and you can get a pop-up preview of what you need,” says New Delhi-based chartered accountant Hrishikesh Deshmukh. “If you are a busy person and want to make the most of your time, My Yahoo is the way to go,” he adds.

Not to be left behind, Microsoft has also decided to spruce up MSN, even though its content is not as customisable as that of rivals Google and Yahoo. Nevertheless, My MSN gives users an email preview, various news feeds, horoscopes and stock market updates. “I think it can afford to be a little less cluttered and better organised, especially when compared with Google and Yahoo,” says student Prakhya Bhat, who used My MSN but abandoned it for lack of simple design and variety in applications that can be added onto the page.

Rediff, too, has jumped in the personalised page race but fares poorly due to lack of ease in customisation. While there are the usual news and cricket tabs, Rediff stands out with its song streaming features as well as the brand’s flagship shopping deals. It makes sense for users like Aman Singh, a photographer by profession who loves to shop online. He says, “If I want to try online shopping, what can be more convenient than Rediff Shopping. And the portal’s latest music streaming service, Rediff SoundBuzz, lets me choose songs tagged by my friends. For everything else, I prefer Google.”