Microsoft improves personal portal service

Microsoft has improved the beta that allows users of its MSN portal to build their own personal home page.

The MSN Start service (www.start.com) allows people to build their own homepage by dragging in newsfeeds, entertainment and other content from a supplied list.

The improvements to the beta include auto-refresh for feeds, an indicator for when feeds have been read, and the ability to edit the length and detail of headlines.

The Start service still does not support Apple’s Safari web browser. It does support Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and the open source Firefox browser.

Personalised web services are increasingly being offered by all the main portal companies, with Google, AOL, and Yahoo all recently launching different personal services to their users.