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What Is Your Homepage?

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One of the best ways to stay up-to-date and informed is to ensure that the content you "must see" is always front and center.

In April 2009, I asked, what is your homepage?, and in thinking about how Sunday tends to be one of those days where people actually have the time to deep-dive into some of the meatier content of the day, I’m curious what are the spaces, sites and environments that you have to see the second you click on your browser?

Here are the tabs that always up when I start Google Chrome (my current web browser of choice):

  • All Things Digital. The Wall Street Journal created this semi-portal for – as the title suggests – all things digital. The quality of content here is excellent.
  • Facebook. While some are considering abandoning Facebook, it’s still my primary online social network, and I use this area to review comments and get a general feeling (via the newsfeed) as to what is going on with my connections (both personal and business).
  • Google News. I love the way that Google keeps you universally logged into everything. Google News has fantastic personalization tools. It is, without question, one of the most informative places to keep yourself up-to-date with what’s going on in the news of the world, in your neighborhood and in your industry.
  • Google Reader. This is my NORAD of the Interwebs. Google Reader houses all of my news feeds, unifies most of my news alerts and acts as my general first-step hub to the Internet. I love the fact that I cab read my content offline, and the may ways in which I can customize both how I consume content and how I can share it with the world.
  • Hacker News. This is a semi-new one courtesy of the folks at Y Combinator, and it seems to be getting a lot more press attention over the past few months. It has a simple layout, but it’s a great resource for a quick glance of what’s happening in the tech space.
  • Mashable. When asked by brands what one source should they be following to stay up-to-date on everything Social Media, Web 2.0, Digital Marketing, etc… the answer is always Mashable. The quality of writing is not on par with the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, but the quantity is – without question – there. Anything and everything happening online can be found at Mashable.
  • Muck Rack. The site describes itself a whole lot better than I can: "What if you could get tomorrow’s newspaper today? Now you sorta can, by tracking the short messages on Twitter written by the journalists who do the muckraking for major media outlets. Muck Rack makes it easy to follow one line, real time reporting."
  • The New York Times’ Media & Advertising page. I stumbled on to this page and realized how great of a resource it is. Anything within The New York Times‘ network that falls into the advertising and media space is aggregated here. Sometimes the content is just as up-to-date as the stuff you’ll find in Advertising Age or AdWeek.
  • Six Pixels of Separation. Natch.
  • TechMeme. One of the better websites for all things technology and new media.
  • Twitter. The main way I stay connected to Twitter is actually TweetDeck (the application) and via Twitter for the iPhone (formerly Tweetie). That being said, I do like the official page open in case one of the third-party applications go down or are acting wonky.
  • The Twitter Tim.es. This is a nifty little website that uses your own Twitter login to create a real-time customized "newspaper" based on the people you are following and the content they are mutually reading, sharing and retweeting. Think of this as a "trending topics" website based solely on the people you find interesting.

What does your homepage and tabs look like?

7 comments

  1. Mitch, it is definitely the little things that matter. A little thing such as someone’s homepage DEFINITELY matters. The homepage is our home base AND our launch pad. Thank you for reminding us how important it is to strategically think about what we are consuming.
    I would also add that we must think about what we take away from our homepage.
    In other words, I recommend keeping notes via a notepad (I use Google Docs) and/or video (I use a Flip Video).
    While I am reviewing the news and trends of the day, I am struck by ideas to improve my life, my business and the companies I serve. I suggest these tools for others.

  3. You’ve mentioned a few I’ll be adding Mitch. I’m a Google Reader and Gmail first guy, along with my calendar and lately, Gist to keep up with my network movements.

  4. I always have three tabs pop up:
    (1) Google Reader (THE most important)
    (2) Google News
    (3) Mashable
    And THANKS! for the tip on using “The Twitter Tim.es”. I just signed up. My personalized page should be ready in about an hour and I’m excited to check it out.

  5. Just one tab with the speed dial extension for Chromium as the start page.
    On it are the Astronomy Picture of the Day, the dashboards to my WP installs, same for current client work, my bank, my host and my ISP. Also a couple news sites like the BBC and my newspaper here in Belgium. I have some more but they may vary.
    All search goes through the address bar.
    Feeds, mail, tweets, tasks, calendar events, waves and docs all come through extensions, system notifications or other apps, alerts and shortcuts.
    No need for several tabs then.

  7. I find Alltop to be very helpful. You can quickly browse headlines, mouse over a headline to see a little more if it interests you, and then click on it to view the entire article. That way you are able to quickly browse what’s of interest. You can also create a personalized Alltop page to see the news sources that are of interest to you. For example, my Alltop page is my.alltop.com/jeffloper. Alltop doesn’t have every news source, of course, but you can recommend one if you don’t see it there. If they get enough requests, they’ll add it. I’ll be looking to see if some of the sources listed above are in Alltop and will add them to my tabs if they aren’t. Thanks for the suggestions, Mitch.

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