Geez, has the portal come back around or what? I think Yahoo might have had the right idea years ago (1996) in creating their personalized portal product, MyYahoo. It seems Google is now looking to go that direction with it's recent launch of a couple of personalized products which included a personalized search and now a personalized homepage. What are they going to call this new product MyGoogle? For more information on the new personalized homepage check out Google's blog here.
UPDATE: accumul.us did some digging on personalization and portals and how it relates to RSS and posted his findings.