After denying for long that they have any interest in becoming a portal like Yahoo!, it looks like Google has taken it’s first step towards becoming one with it’s new Personalize your homepage project.
In a fashion similar to the personalization of Google News, users can now add news, quotes, posts from Slashdot, mail from Gmail etc. to the homepage below the search box. The drag and drop rearrangement is cool, but, I really don’t see any value in having all that stuff below the search box.
It’s much simpler to get that kind of information through an aggregator like Bloglines. But, most people don’t use aggregators and Google is definitely targeting them with this service, and, of course to get people to register with them to catch up with Yahoo! and Microsoft on that front.
On an unrelated note, here’s an over the top theory of what Google might be planning for the future.