Online start pages have been around for a while now, so I know I am not breaking new ground here to talk about them. There are lots of them…some good, some..not so much. What makes them interesting from a UI perspective are the different ways they each try to sum up the information.

When the first generation of these came out AJAX was a household cleaner to all but the most cutting edge designers and developers out there. Pageflakes was a Microsoft poster boy because they went headfirst and started to use ATLAS (MS’s custom AJAX implementation) while it was still in early beta (which was a beast, let me tell you). The other front runners (netvibes, google, and start.com live.com) waded in with their own custom AJAX goodies.

It was pretty amazing stuff at the time (drag and drop? on a webpage? Awesome.), and even though we see it all over now, the start pages are still pretty sweet.

However, aside from the technical wizardry, if you boil them down, all the start pages do basically the same thing…

1. Collect RSS feeds
2. Collect widgets (soduku anyone?)

The interesting part is the two camps that have sprung up in terms of the interface. In one group (netvibes, google, live, pageflakes, eskobo, itsastart, webjam, and webwag) you have the “columnized format”.

This basically means that in one way or another (typically drag ‘n drop) you select your gizmos and arrange them into columns. This gives a very organized appearance and allows you to put a good deal of information on the screen at one time. If you get too many things on a page, then you just create another one (typically called a tab) and throw more stuff on there. There is nothing altogether sexy about this layout, but it is very functional and easy to grasp even for the complete newb.

On the other side, you have the mavericks (yourminis, and protopage). On these start pages, you choose the layout, and put your feeds, and widgets anywhere you want to. It can get a bit messy, but you get to create your own layout which, I know, is appealing for the “unstructured” types.

But the question remains, are these the only ways to display the data? I mean they all are showing the same things…are there really only two ways to show the goods? And if so, which one is better? In a year or two, most of these sites will be broken links. So who, from a design and interface perspective wins? And how important will design be to the standouts?

I personally am a big fan of netvibes. I have about a dozen or so tabs filled to the brim with feeds, and other whoozits. They are really pushing the boundaries in some interesting ways…should do a deep dive on them some day (note to self).