Light Within

Homepage is a new genre brought into existence by the Internet. Everyone who uses a connected computer has a homepage. Some users keep having the same homepage that came when they bought a computer? Some others pick new ones: blank or showing their main interest on the Internet.

Homepage, also called as a default page, "is the main page or the first page of a Website that a browser opens with, or where the browser will return if the Home button on the Navigation toolbar is pressed." A good homepage should attract, and hold the attention of the visitors and direct them to content within the rest of the site. Webmasters and designers obviously go a long way in their endeavors that users make their sites' Homepages their own, apart from tweaking them for the search engines. Most Websites have options like this: 'Make us your home page, click here to make us your home page, click to make this as a default page. But that is not enough particularly with savvy and choosy users.

Typically, a homepage provides background of the Website they belong to and links to other information sources. Homepages are more general in focus and introduce the main concepts, rather than focusing specifically on one subject. Users have the option to set the homepage {click on tools on the browser toolbar, Internet options, and Use Current or Use Default (that in the case of Windows is MSN homepage) or Use Blank} of their choice; some do it and some others do not bother.

One wonders what users look for when they select homepages on their own machines. Having seen a lot of homepages, I have been asking a few of the Internet users what theirs is. Why do they like it? Why did they prefer it and what did they use it for? Empirical observations show that over 65 percent of users just leave it as whatever it was when they got their computer. Mostly, it is MSN homepage in case of local users because it comes with the Windows Operating System. "They simply may be casual or may be lacking know how to manipulate and set their homepage afresh, says Webmaster Fauji Foundation Hospital Site Zahid Shazad.

Out of those who change their home page, some 15 percent have a blank page and the rest (20 percent) have selected their favorite site's home page as theirs. Aamir Waqas, a working journalist says, "I have set my browser to open as a blank page when I launch it. I like it uncluttered and simple. I have to work on different sites they are all bookmarked in the Favorite cache. I just point my mouse to anyone I want to explore and it opens. It is simple."

Besides contents, the convenience matters. Users prefer to do their jobs with the least possible clicks. Dr. Farid Abbas, a research fellow who writes research-based case studies for postgraduate students in one university says, "I have set Yahoo Mail as my home page because I find it easy to go to my inbox that is at Yahoo. But I keep changing it. When I am doing some project, I have the home page of a related site."

Search the net is one major activity online. Every user searches the net for one thing or the other. One study says that "75 percent of Internet users gather web content, while 25 percent search for specific items." Hence many users are found with search engines set as home pages on their machines; with Google at the top.

The design of the home page is one of the major attractions for young users – the fraternity that has designed diverse interests and activities online. Some love to search for things they like online, and others like the news about games that a few of the portals display in their ever-rotating tiles. Those who are fond of sending greeting cards have sites, that offer the greeting cards facility, as their home page. I found a couple of young users having sites as their home pages that dish out similies, new ones every day.

Those who have their own Websites, personal or business, like to see own page first and set them as default. "It is an ego booster to see one's own name, product, or company, says Dr. Muhammad Anwar, a sociologist.

The phenomenon of selecting a home page has taken a new dimension with a new surge of self-published Websites called Web logs (blogs). According to Technorati, a company considered an authority on what is going on in the Blogosphere, "The current number of blogs is now over 8 times bigger than the 500,000 blogs it measured in June 2003. The company tracked 3 million blogs as of the first week of July 2004 and has added over 1 million blogs to its stable since then. Another report says that a new weblog is created every 5.8 seconds. That roughly translates into 15,000 new blogs every day. Many Internet users maintain their own blogs and of course they like to set them as their home pages, to increase their hit counts if nothing else.

Blogs are ultimate in customization. Users can link all that they need on one page. (Yes, I too have linked everything I need on the Internet including the search facility on my blog, and have set that as a home page.) Home pages of the Websites are being used to construct the identity of people or products. Every one of the Webmasters and marketers is vying for users' attention. On the other hand, much choice is available to the users, and when they come to a site, "almost 8 out of 10 of the Internet users are saying this: I have been lead here, now what next.

Tell me why I should visit here again; let alone making this my home page." More choice the users have, choosier they will become and this will go on and on. So what is your? You are welcome to make my home page as yours.