Google’s Personalized Home Page
Pros : Nice integration with Google Calendar. Clean and uncluttered interface similar in feeling to Gmail and Google Reader. Lots of modules to choose from–hard to tell exactly how many as there’s no count given in Google’s Homepage Content Directory.
Cons : Minimal integration with Google apps and services: no integration with Google Reader, no Google Talk module, and no way to send an email through Gmail right from the page. No keyboard shortcuts. Poor use of screen real estate and low density of information. No summary statistics showing number of unread articles from various feeds.
Netvibes
Pros: Excellent integration of power feed reading capabilities with an information-rich start page display. Thriving ecosystem of module developers. Well funded, which matters for its longevity. Offers keyboard shortcuts, but you need to turn them on if you want to use them.
Cons: The POP mail module is virtually unusable with its inability to mark items as read. Showing a total of unread items at the top based on inaccurate numbers in the mail modules is just pure noise to the brain. Needs a quick email send capability. The feed reader itself isn’t as information-dense or as easy to navigate by keyboard as Google Reader.
Pageflakes
Pros: Email compose/send capability. Nice use of screen real estate. Attractive interface with accurate read/unread item counts for mail and RSS feeds.
Cons: No integrated advanced feed reading as with a dedicated news reader. Difficult browsing of feed items. Module development community appears less active than that of Netvibes.
Protopage
Pros: Integrated feed reading for feeds that only publish excerpts. A rich gallery of widgets. Fully customizable color schemes.
Cons: The rounded corners on the widgets feel dated–this is a web app, not a desktop dashboard–and they take up more space than necessary. The integrated feed reader may be too limited for people who read large numbers of feeds.
yourminis
Pros: Polished desktop-like look and feel. Nice text editor mini.
Cons: The colors and graphic effects draw attention away from what’s really important: the information on the page. Though yourminis is intended to be an open platform, it doesn’t appear to have attracted as much attention from developers as the Ajax-based start pages.
