New AOL homepage on the way

(October 16 2004) America Online is quietly testing a redesigned version of its home page. It seems they are moving towards becoming a Web portal again.

The test page for the new design has an uncluttered layout, fresh looking icons and a soothing color scheme. All of this makes the page easy and pleasing to navigate, and we like it.

The layout consists of information boxes and the users can choose to fill them with different content feeds, such as news headlines or local weather reports. This opportunity for personalization will surely be appreciated by the users.

Here at Pandia, we especially enjoy the fact that the web search box is placed at the top of the page. Also, there is a separate box for commercial search links. This is an honest approach and will help searchers find what they are looking for, whether they want information or shopping.

The icons mentioned above are shortcuts to popular services. These icons gives you access to convenient drop-down menus. The "Find It Fast" icon leads to smaller search bars that lets you find recipes, maps, phone numbers, and even romantic opportunities. This is a nice way to make web searching easy.

AOL has tried several times to spice up its Web portal business to gain momentum in the race with Yahoo and MSN. These efforts were kind of half hearted, though, as since most of AOL's resources were invested in its subscription dial-up service.

Lately, AOL has been loosing a lot of dial-up customers, due in part to the fact that the prices of broadband services are dropping. So AOL needs other sources of income and it seems they are hoping web search might be one.

Also, Pandia reported last month that AOL is testing a comparison shopping service called In-Store. This service will compete with Yahoo! Shopping, Google’s Froogle comparison shopping service and Shopping.com. It will be interesting to see whether AOL perhaps joined this race too late.

The beta testing of the new homepage started in the evening of October 15 and it is not yet clear when the site will officially launch. The test site is available to any surfer, but when the testing period is over, access will be limited to AOL members.

Read more at news.com.

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