Google launches their own 'portal'

Google today announced the first major change to its understated homepage since its launch. Visitors to the site can now choose to personalize their Google page to create a Web portal uniting many of Google's different services. The traditional Google homepage is still available, now called Google Classic, and users can toggle between a personalized view and the classic search pane.

I'm not sure why this is such a shock since google news has been brewing for so long. Normally more competition is considered good for consumers, but I can see why both Yahoo and even MSN would be a bit uneasy about Google taking aim at more and more what they do. I mostly use Google but my view of Yahoo has changed in a positive direction over the last few years due to what seems to be a newer culture / attitude.

The options are pretty basic so far (especially compared to others like Yahoo!) but the one "cool" feature so far is the ability to drag and drop the content blocks on the fly to re-arrange the layout of the page. Yahoo can also dynamically re-arrange the layout but they choose to use an "edit" button where the user can decide from pre-defined choices on where they want the block moved to.

I will probably use it for a while since I use Gmail as my primary email client and the page lets me view my inbox but I am still going to stick with MyYahoo for the time being since I have more control over things like custom RSS feeds.