In general, people are having a very hard time with the announcement of Google’s personalized home page—either overestimating the importance, missing key points or just plain failing to get it. At its most basic, think of it as a toolbar in the form of a page for people who rely on Google more than other sites. It does not meet current expectations for a high-powered home page (I was a very early Excite user so I know from home pages) because Google didn’t design it that way. It can’t and still have that nice, clean Googly feel described by Marissa Mayer. It also would be too copycat for Google’s collective ego. (See CEO Eric Schmidt’s comments from the q-and-a.)
The most important facet: Google won’t sell advertising on its “classic” home page but this one is fair game. No advertising now but look for that to change. It’s more of a “how” and “when” than an “if.”
Right now, it doesn’t meet my expectations for a Google “fusion” product because it doesn’t provide a way to pick and choose from all of Google’s own services and products which ones I want on the start page.
The fuss over RSS as MIA is misplaced given the company’s assurance that universal RSS support will be added in the next couple of weeks.
Charlene Li says that of the people who use Google most frequently to search the Interent, only 17 percent use Google as a default home page compared to 72 percent that use MSN for search and also have it as their home page. She sees that as a sign that Google needs to catch up. I’ll twist it a little to point out that 17 percent of Google’s heaviest users are content with a vanilla start page because it meets their needs. Not everyone want everything on their front page.