Earthlink Says Broadband Should Look Like This

Earthlink's Personal Start Page is more than just a new portal. After extensive research, the company has produced version 1.0 of what the broadband Internet should look like.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [November 20, 2003]

Earthlink announced the launch of its new Personal Start Page (PSP) yesterday. "We wanted to incorporate the benefits of broadband: the fat pipe and the always on connection," explains Keith Gallagher, Earthlink's director of high speed marketing. A demo of the result, which Earthlink calls its Enhanced Module, is available here.

To develop the Enhanced Module, Earthlink turned to San Francisco, Calif.-based Laszlo Systems, a company with a reputation for building interactive websites, such that of Behr, a paint company. The Behr website helps viewers choose colors and provides extensive advice about planning painting projects.

The left side of the Enhanced Module showcases a video from Reuters that users can click on to see the latest breaking news story. On the right are tabs providing immediate access to mail, weather, stock quotes, and a horoscope. "We will change this based on user requests," says Tracy Boyd, Earthlink's director of product development. "One of the most common early requests has been for sports information."

She adds that the video is the most popular part of the module at the moment.

Currently, the module can be viewed in three ways, with three skins each, for a total of nine different views. The module can be viewed with tabs, as described above, which is the default view. Users can choose to have the tabs always open, in columns. Or users can choose a view the company calls, "Panorama."

The hidden raccoon
It is in "Panorama" mode that Laszlo Systems was most creative. The three panoramas are called "Tropical," "Magritte," and "Funville." "Funville depicts a city or a small town. The content of the town changes depending on events. Next to a street sign for "Wall Street" stands a bull or bear, depending on whether the market is up or down. The sky reflects the weather in the user's zip code, with clouds, lightning, or just clear blue, as appropriate. Next to the street sign is an abandoned lot. A number of cats equal to the hour of the day sit on the fence of the lot.

The company has hidden some "Easter egg" animations. For example, when you mouse over a fire hydrant, it sprays water. Mouse over the "ROXY" theater, and the neon sign lights up. Mouse over a trash can and a raccoon pops out of it.

Boyd says that the default view is currently the most popular, but that users who change the view often pick one of the panoramas. Is this the future of the "always on" connection? The panoramas are relaxing and engrossing. Perhaps broadband will allow Web designers and ISPs to move beyond the Web page.

Although Earthlink is considering making the module a floating or standalone page in the future, for now it is firmly anchored within a standard ISP start page. The rest of the page, which is what narrowband Earthlink users see, is not unusual but does contain a great deal of useful information.

Our regular programming
The page has direct links to several vendors such as eBay and Amazon. It has a Google search bar prominently displayed. It has links to common search categories, to local weather, to news, and to Earthlink features. Other items that are not on the default page, such as a TV guide, can be added by the user.

How much of all of this can be crammed into the Enhanced Module? Wait and see. Earthlink has already committed a great deal of time and effort to the module, and the project is ongoing. Says Boyd, "we did usability testing, developed mockups, and modified them based on user feedback."

Earthlink will continue to modify the module as part of its project to keep broadband users happy. "There are few differentiators between dialup and broadband today," explains Gallagher. "We need to give the user what they cannot get over dialup."

We tested the module on a slow Pentium II laptop, and on a new Dell Dimension XPS machine. Although the video was better on the faster machine, the experience was fine on both. "Although you'll have a better experience on a better computer," says Boyd, "the module degrades elegantly. It's best on a computer running at over 500 MHz."

For the future, Earthlink will be turning its software team loose on the broadband concept, looking for "pain points" in the "broadband experience" that the company can solve.

The enhanced module is a project in pleasing the customer—and it's about showing the customer that the Web can do so much more than they realized. An ISP, such as Earthlink, that shows the customer a broadband experience that's above average, will be rewarded with enhanced customer loyalty. We expect Earthlink to see a real return on investment with this project.

However, the company will only reap the rewards as long as it continues to invest in the module. The project will show a profit, but it will also be a recurring cost. Earthlink seems ready to commit to the project over the long term. "We're just getting started," says Boyd.

— End