I'd like to do a little informal poll here. What do you use as your start page? I've tried different start pages over the years, and I've always migrated back to My Yahoo! because I get a nice mix of information - some that I can supply via RSS feeds, and some that is news chosen by editors who have a pretty good idea of what they think is important news of the day. In addition, I like the look and feel. I think that's really the key to it for me. Although I can add my own personal touch to it, My Yahoo seems to get the design and default information right from the get-go. I don't have to work hard to be happy with it, but I can if I want to.
I've tried Pageflakes and Netvibes and many similar personalized start page services, but I always end up back at My Yahoo. I think it was more a function of not taking the time to get it the way I wanted it. But I'm not quite sure if that's why I moved back or not. Something just wasn't "right".
I know some people probably have a search engine as their start page, and I can't really understand why. I use the search form at the top of my browser so it seems a waste to use a search engine as my start page.
Some might use their feed readers as their home page. I don't, simply because I use GreatNews as a separate application. But I can see how an online feed reader might be useful as a start page.
Most personalized start page applications can now let you create separate tabs, so I can see how some might have the "generic news and info" on one tab, "SEO feeds" on another tab, etc. That might be something I should try sometime.
Our days as SEOs, web developers, website owners, etc. are pretty crammed with tons of to-do items. The way we organize our days can be crucial to our productivity. The start pages we use may be a contributing factor, albeit in a small way, to that productivity. For that reason, I'd like to see if perhaps I'm missing out on some great way of starting my online experience. In any case, I revisit my start page decision from time to time, and this time I thought it would be fun to see what others are using. Maybe your choice is the one that makes me do a happy dance - makes me just a little more productive.
Just let us know in the comments what you have your start page set to and thanks for sharing!
My home page is really 5 tabs in Firefox:
Plaxo – for calendars & contacts
Remember The Milk – for tasks
OWA – for one work account
Gmail – for a personal account
Basecamp – for our Intranet
(yes, I know Plaxo does tasks, but RTM does them better and syncs to Google calendar which syncs to Plaxo.)
Mine is google.co.uk and always has been for as long as I’ve been online.
All right, technically the page set to be my home page is Google.com. But how often does that actually impact my habits? Pretty much never. Fact is, with Firefox being able to remember my last session, I pretty much ALWAYS return to wherever I happened to be previously — which is usually about 30 tabs.
Two of them are pretty well always open, however: Cre8asiteforums and Google Reader. Others fluctuate.
Mine is Google reader. Mail is in thunderbird so that and FF open up on boot and I’m ready to start my day.
Opens with all the last opened tabs (45 today, uggghhh).
igoogle.com – with all my info there
It’s Pageflakes for me because that’s the only one that let’s me share and publish my pages. I like it a lot.
S.
I usually just leave the default. Firefox usually goes to the Firefox/ Google page, and Safari goes to some page on Apple.
I’ve have been using Flock a bit more since you mentioned it a few weeks ago, and I sort of like it’s default start page: (about:myworld)
It’s a page that features some of your bookmarks, feeds, and media.
I wrote my own 🙂 And I’m going through a very slow re-write. I haven’t seen a single service that really does what I want perfectly.
Pierre
Dear Donna,
After a year of visiting your site, you finally got me to post a reply, lol.
4 tabs in Firefox opening to iGoogle with all related to Technology, SEO, Wireless, Reader, etc. – Yahoo with your site, more SEO, Technology and local and world news (and my horoscope of course) – our own site http://www.ocautoservice.com and GMail. Not bad for an Old Geek, right?
So some of you do the expected, but those of you that open up a large set of last visited tabs – that’s new to me. I can’t imagine why I’d want to do that every time I open my browser. Of course, I avoid iGoogle just to avoid giving Google any more pieces of me than they already have. LOL.
And Ed, it’s taken you this long to comment? Tsk, tsk, be more vocal, man! But yeah, I’m impressed with you, you old geek, you. 😉
Mine is iGoogle with a load of widgets including
google reader
gmail
calvin and hobbes
problogger feed
etc
etc
I guess, in response to the “why somebody would keep all their tabs alive” question, I should also mention that I actually only close my browser about once every week or so!
Ahhh, well, that makes a bit of difference. I close my browser probably 100 or 200 times a day, so I would then be OPENING it that many times too – and reloading all those tabs each time.
Donna, I agree with you, but right-clicking a tab in IE or Firefox will let you close all of them at once.
What I really did with the different web apps was free myself from a local copy of Outlook.
(Of course, now I have multiple machines with local copies of Outlook…)
My.yahoo has been my homepage for a while now, but it may be time for a change. I just haven’t found anything better yet…
My homepage is yahoo, where I have numerous RSS feeds filling the page. I got tired of news articles all talking about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and the like, so my entire homepage consists of nothing of RSS feeds. Oh, and the weather. 🙂
I use IGoogle.
I have it set up to show SEOBook Tools, Weather, GMail, and Document to PDF. It works well for me.
I have 2 tabs in Firefox.
1st is iGoogle, feeding in every relevant and valuable blog I can discover and letting them battle it out survival of the fittest -style.
Second is JamesBrausch.com, because for some reason I can’t figure out how to feed his blog, but I don’t want to miss a day of it anyway. It’s that good!
Another start page website to check out is Odysen, http://www.odysen.com. It has widgets, multiple pages, and social networking features.
Some of the distinguishing features include free formatting and integrated RSS feeds, allowing you to add multiple feeds in one News widget. There is also a blog available with feature updates and page examples, http://odysen.blogspot.com.