Posted on March 1, 2007 at 4:28 PM in @earthlink
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
Although we haven't heard much from Tom and the myEarthLink start page team here on Earthling in little while, a lot has been going on behind the scenes. Over the past few months in Campfire I've watched some of the most thoughtful(if a little poindextery) conversations you can have about UI, on topics like the comparative merits of "remove" vs. "delete" and which icon is best for "partly cloudy". The team has been living and breathing this project, and with a certain Spaceballs reference("We've Gone To Plaid"), they've given the nod to move the project into Preview phase. Today they're ready to give you a peek into their efforts. Tom has the full scoop:
It's been a while since my last update on the new personal start page, but rest assured, we've kept ourselves busy.We hit the ground running in the new year and have been building, building, building. In January, we continued to add new features and fine-tune our work from last year. In February, we started putting the new page in front of fresh users as well. We did another round of usability testing in Pasadena and we invited a large group of EarthLink employees and test users to try our Alpha Release of the product. All the while, we were making large and small refinements and putting the product through multiple rounds of quality assurance.
I'm very happy today to announce we're launching a Preview release of the new page to our esteemed Earthling readers and existing start page users. To take a peek, go to http://preview.my.earthlink.net. If you are logged into myEarthLink already, you'll be switched to the Preview version, and your preferences will be moved over. If you're not logged in, you'll be directed to a log-in page.
The Preview release won't stay in "preview" for long. We have more features and functionality on the way, and will continue to refine the page based on the feedback we get. To learn more about what's coming up and talk about what you would like to see on the new page, check out the new Portal Product Blog. Your feedback has been a great help to our team, and I hope we'll continue the conversation on the new blog.
-Tom
Comments
Great to hear the update! Thanks!
Posted by thisjustin | March 1, 2007 8:37 PM
Will it be possible to opt out of the ads on the new page? Among other things, I have ADD and I find the ads VERY distracting (especially the one where the guy is wiggling like Elvis all the time!). If I have a need for a product or service, I go and look up ads of possible providers, but I hate having them shoved down my throat.
Posted by Barbara Mathews | March 5, 2007 10:23 AM
Will the database for the Reminders feature get updated? A week ago I had an online chat with an Earthlink support person, whose grasp of English seemed to be very poor, about the fact that Reminders insists on telling me that Daylight Saving Time starts on April 1 (in fact it's March 11). He first tried to tell me the problem was with my computer, then went on to say that it was due to the fact that the servers worked on IST. When I queried IST he told me it is International Standard Time - whatever happened to UTC, and where is the relevance to my original question?
Posted by PeterC | March 6, 2007 2:05 PM
I HATE THE NEW PAGE AND THE ADS ON IT
Posted by Rita Timko | March 6, 2007 6:25 PM
i wish i had a home page the techs at earthlink tried to fix one problem and wasted the whole home page and can not seem to fix anything else i've contacted them 5 times in three weeks a least and keep getting answers from the eng. are not in to the server that we use to fix that is down. BULL
Posted by j crowe | March 10, 2007 3:23 PM
I wanted to know when the new page will start and how to actually get it???
Posted by M.Morrison | March 15, 2007 2:20 PM
anybody having trouble with earthlink??
Posted by vicki hendrick | March 18, 2007 3:29 PM
don`t care for the new page, like the old one better.
Posted by Ken | April 6, 2007 9:03 PM
I DO NOT want to be automatically be referred to the HOME PAGE when I SIGN OUT to check my other EARTHLINK emails, that is the reason I have always used WEBMAIL!
I WANT TO OPT OUT OF THIS, HOW CAN I DO THAT?
PLEASE RESPOND!!!!
Posted by J Slaughter | May 31, 2007 10:35 AM
J: The Web Mail team is adding a preference to control that. Take a look at the discussion over on the Web Mail blog for more information on this.
Posted by Dave C. | June 4, 2007 4:21 PM
am I now enrolled in my own blog? Or do I still need a different nick name?
Posted by Spunky | June 4, 2007 9:13 PM