Aren't we talking about a customized iGoogle or something like that? I would add calendar appointments, to do lists, new mail notifications, and forum posts that meet certain criteria (e.g. keywords, author, threads I started) into the mix as well. If you are thinking out of the box, then I would want to know everything that could possibly affect me to be displayed in one location. Currently, I have to look at my RSS reader, gPodder, mnotify, calendar, to do, the forums, etc to get a snapshot of the things that interest me or that I have to act upon. There must be some way to efficiently present all this information to a user?!