I've been experimenting with a new "personal page" widget called Pageflakes, and I'm rather impressed at how I can control what content arrives where on my page. I can subscribe to the pre-packaged RSS feeds or I can create a page that displays whatever RSS feed I care to subscribe to.

I can also create multiple pages and pick and choose which ones I want to share with others, either a select group or the public at large.

detail image of sample page described below. Click the pic to go there

Using the RSS feeds available here on omidyar.net, I created this omidyar.net feeds page that anyone, anywhere can browse . For demonstration effect, I simply chose some group discussion feeds and a specific discussion's feed to display on the page. I also threw in the podcast for NPR's hourly news to show you can add podcasts to your Pageflake, and I threw in the world time clock flake as an example of an existing flake (there are 100s available already)

In the left column, I've demonstrated some of the display features for a given RSS feed:

• You can select how many feed items to display, from 1 to 20.
• You can choose whether to have a description of the feed or not.
• You can even specify whether or not you want the tool tip to appear (hover your cursor over the item to get a lookahead view at the feed contents)

In the Pageflakes interface, I can drag and drop these feed widgets across three columns, knowing that the left column will always display the most info.

So, as you can see, this is a quick way to track the discussions of groups you're interested in. For those wanting to see what it's like to navigate omidyar.net sans feedback scores, this one way to do it, too. There's still links back into omidyar.net so you can contribute to discussions you're interested in.

If not for my RSS aggregator allowing me to navigate content while I'm offline, I'd be sorely tempted to give it up altogether in favor of using Pageflakes to manage my feeds. Have others been using Pageflakes? How's the experience for you?