A brand-new, old-fashioned news reader: SimplyHeadlines
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
I thought maybe this pitch had been stuck in my email since 1999 and just got jiggled loose: "Receive your personalized SimplyHeadlines customized newspaper via email."
SimplyHeadlines, launching today, lets you select from a variety of news sources, and it will deliver you a nice-looking "newspaper" in your email every day at the time of your choosing. Nice, I suppose, if you've never heard of personal start pages like My Yahoo, Google homepage, Microsoft Live, NetVibes, etc. And it's even better if you don't like real customization: While you can select from a few information providers in each news category (world, tech, sports, etc.), you can't get SimplyHeadlines to deliver news from a service not on the system -- like, say, Webware.com in Tech. For shame.
People who aren't ready for the dreadful complexity of My Yahoo should use this product. And while they're at it, they can get their printed photos from one of those made-for-grandma Presto printers (see story from May). For you and me, though? Skip it.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
You CAN add your own feeds to SimplyHeadlines - if you don't see the news and features you want! Once you sign up for the free service, go to Subscriber Menu > Choose Your News, where you can either select among the sources listed or add your own (see the bottom of that page.) And you are correct in that SimplyHeadlines service is LIKE a startpage - but this comes to your email and is very popular with Treo, Blackberry and other mobile device users on-the-go. Version 2.0, based on feedback from thousands of users, was just released today. More at http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20061204005707&newsLang=en