Google, the search engine giant famous amongst other things for it's minimalist home page, appears to be finally giving in to the idea that it's home page could be a portal, with the recent launch of a new service which allows users to customise their homepage.
Launched through the Google Labs service, the idea is that the service runs in complement to the existing Google search page. If a user wants to continue using the spartan Google homepage, then they can do so, but if they prefer a homepage which provides them all the information they want in one handy place, then they can do that as well.
Content which is available on the customised homepage includes Gmail, stock quotes, news and weather. Currently a limited number of feeds exist, but Google believe that they will be able to accept any standardized feed very soon. Roll on the ITVibe feed on your Google homepage.
The idea of a customisable homepage is nothing new. Other search engine giants, including MSN and Yahoo, have been doing it for quite a while now. Google however has always stood apart from the crowd in not offering users a flexible portal to the web. Clearly however, their strategy is changing away from being just a search engine provider, and more towards being the focal point of a users web browsing activity.
It should be interesting to see user response to this new direction Google are going in. Give the new service a go here, and let us know what you think in our comments section below.