I’ve had my Yahoo! screen name since the mid 90s and my Google screen name since its beta days. Both of of them allow you to customize your own, personalized home page Web 2.0 style. That is AJAX technologies and support for gadgets/widgets is available and extensively used for a more superior, less lag time user experience.
Of the two, I favor iGoogle more mainly because it is ad-less. This means no ads appear on your “home page,” unlike My Yahoo!’s where huge banner ads appear on the top of the page. It’s understandable that ads result in a steady cash flow, but they’re just plain eye sores.
I particularly like iGoogle’s “You might also like…” widget option, as it helps me choose the coolest or most useful gadget (this is subjective of course) out of the gazillion gadgets; mighty handy.
Additionally, the themes available are better looking and more streamlined than My Yahoo!’s; for example, a nice feature is the theme’s top banner changing color and activity based on the current time. I’m currently using the “Tea House” theme. It’s nothing spectacular but quite interesting and fun, which makes me want to go to “my home page” more frequently. =0)
One thing I’d like to see on iGoogle, however, is My Yahoo!’s AJAX/JavaScript feature where onmouseover the details of that text is shown in a modal-type window (not available on everything, though). Yeah, iGoogle’s page has the ‘+’ ellipses to do that but My Yahoo!’s is way easier to use.
To make things easier, I’ll list and compare these two giants’ personal home page services/features [of what I can remember or notice] side-by-side:
| Feature | iGoogle | My Yahoo! |
| Web 2.0 enabled | Yes | Yes |
| Ad-Free | Yes | No |
| RSS Subscriptions | Yes | Yes |
| Theme Support | Yes | Yes |
| Tab Support | Yes | Yes |
| E-mail Integration | Yes | Yes |
| Calendar Integration | Yes | Yes |
| Web History | Yes | No |
| Bookmarks | Yes | Yes |
| Page Column Support | Yes | Yes |
| Documents | Yes | No |
| Pageload Speed | Excellent | Excellent |
Interestingly, I read this article stating that men use Google, while women use Yahoo!. So is it just because I’m a man that I prefer Google over My Yahoo!? No, I don’t think so; from my day to day use/experience, I find myself more productive and in-tune with iGoogle.