After several false … um, starts, Microsoft's latest trial version of
Start, with Gadgets Preview, is one juicy interface with lots of Ajaxy
goodness. In the personalized home page arena, nobody can really touch My Yahoo!'s breadth of content. but insofar as
interface design gains any traction in the market, draggable modules are where it's at. Accordingly, Microsoft and
Google are slugging it out for prettiness and ease of use. Start is testing
"gadgets"—widgety information modules that open across the screen from a drop-down menu that can be "pinned" to the
page or appear on rollover. One click appends the selected gadget (like stock quotes or weather) to the page, ready to
be dragged into place. Compare this sort of thing to Yahoo!'s ancient page-by-page system of adding content, and you
begin to wonder when users will abandon content for interface.
Microsoft Start Points the Way to Better Home Page
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. I would like to see Yahoo claen up the my page a little bit myself. It could be cleaner, and support drag and drop.
Start is very cool in the way that you can watch RSS feeds and when you click the link to one it opens a window so you can stay on start and read the more info, and then decide if you want to go to the site or not.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by loom001
1. Doesn't work very well on a Mac. Tried Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera 8. All i get is the word "start" with a search box. Very minimalist. If they are going after the google market, it shows...
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by macxprt