The BBC has a new customizable home page, with gadgets similar to those at Netvibes, iGoogle and elsewhere.

First impressions are mixed. I don’t like it’s large size (1024 x 768), even though this is the trend. This issue is not the size of my display, but that I don’t necessarily want the browser to occupy so much of it. I’m sorry there is not more effort put into web pages that resize nicely – one of the reasons I like Times Reader and its cousins.

Second, I found myself with large blank areas after a quick go at customization. I also noticed that even if I selected many more subcategories for the News panel, it is still much less informative and useful than the old-style (and smaller) News home page, which to be honest is normally where I go to when I visit the BBC. I hope there is no rush to update the News page to the same style.