Google Gets More Personal
Google added a link to its “personalized home” in the upper right of its Google.com home page. If you click on the link and are not signed in to Google, you’ll see weather, quote of the day, word of the day and top news stories.
The page encourages users to personalize the Google home page (and sign up for Gmail if you’re not already) and opens a sidebar window that shows a range of news feeds, giving users the option to create a personalized feed.
A low-key bid to create more loyalty and add more “registered” users; Google is not aggressively pushing it by putting the link in the somewhat obscure upper right of the page.
In a June 2005 online survey (1,440 respondents), investment adviser ChangeWave found the following in asking “what website do you use as your homepage at home?”:
* Yahoo 29%
* MSN 13%
* My Internet Service Provider’s Home Page 13%
* Google 11%
* AOL 6%
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Greg Sterling is managing editor of The Kelsey Group. He also leads The Kelsey Group’s the Interactive Local Media program, focusing on local search. Greg came to The Kelsey Group from TechTV’s “Working the Web,” the first national television show dedicated to e-business and the Internet.
