Thing 8: So 2007

I'm not gonna lie - I thought these customized start pages were a little underwhelming (not as underwhelming as Linkedin, but nothing is that boring).  I think that maybe I'm being unduly influenced by the fact that I realize they're not so cutting edge - I remember creating something similar on iGoogle years ago.  So this wasn't as innovative or new to me as some of the other tools and things we've been looking at.

Still, I checked them out, and did create my own Pageflakes start page.  I even made my own theme, and added a fun page, and really set it as my home page.  I'm just not sure I'll really use it much.  I know I recently gushed about how awesome it was to have all the blogs I follow and news sources I check in one spot, but for some reason, it quickly becomes overwhelming when there's also games and facebook and email and weather...  It was Walt Whitman who said "Do I contradict myself?  Very well then, I contradict myself.  I am large, I contain multitudes" - I'm feeling him right now.

I can't put my finger on what makes this less appealing to me than Google Reader, but it is.  That said, I'll acknowledge there are a few things I like:
1. It's pretty.  I like my customized theme.
2. Being able to create separate pages is very convenient.  Dividing feeds for news from those for fun or for work is smart.
3. Some of the widgets are cool.

However, I also see some things I don't like:
1. The obnoxious, unmoveable ad space.
2.  I have some trouble actually getting the content (at least at school) - it simply won't download.  What's the point of setting all this up if it's not reliable? 
3. The reader function doesn't seem as user-friendly as Google's.  I just prefer the layout and sidebar menus there instead.

Final verdict is meh.