We wanted to go beyond the basic weather forecast and provide you with a more, well-rounded and useful snapshot of what's happening near you. The new "My Local" module combines weather and real-time news about your area. You can also find out where to buy cheap gas and check out the latest lottery results. And there are more local features coming soon.
And if you miss having weather at the top of your home page, you can make it one your four preview panels in the "My Stuff" area. Click here to learn more. Here's more information about the new "My Local" features:
Real-Time News
This new feature delivers a mix of local interest stories, sports news and other articles about your hometown. Other real-time news features include:
This new feature delivers a mix of local interest stories, sports news and other articles about your hometown. Other real-time news features include:
- Refresh: Let's you keep your local news headlines current. Just click on the "Refresh" link in the top left of the module to pull in the latest headlines near you.
- View Related Articles: Surfaces other related articles to a given topic from news sources across the Web. You can rollover the "View Related Articles" link next to headlines you're interested in to see a list of related content.
- View All Headlines: Scan the local news summary or click on "View All Headlines" link at the bottom right of the module to dig in to the real-time local news archive.
Local Gas Prices & Lottery
In addition to weather and real-time local news, you'll also find low gas prices near you. And given today's economy, who doesn't want to find the lowest gas prices around?! You can click on any of the stations in the gas price list to map its location on MapQuest and get directions if needed.
Below Gas Prices, we've introduced Lottery results, a quick and easy way for any lottery lover to check the latest results and find out if you are a big winner. Just remember, we loved you before you struck it rich. ;)
Adding Locations
For those of you interested in weather and information from more than one place, "My Local" lets you save up to five locations. For example, if you live in Connecticut but commute to New York every day, you can save different locations for home and work so you can stay on top of what's happening and find out if you should pack an umbrella.
To add/save locations, just click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner of the "My Local" module. Then click on the "Add a New Location" button then enter in a new city's name or ZIP Code. Make sure you identify one of your saved locations as the default for your "My Local" module. Otherwise, you see the last location you browsed as the default for your "My Local" experience, meaning your weather, real-time news, gas prices and lottery data will based on that Zip Code.
Changing Locations
Changing from one location to another is easy, just click on the Edit button at the top any time you want to change the entire Local News section to another location. Click on the drop-down arrow to switch locations, click Save and you're done. All your "My Local" data (weather, real-time news, gas prices and lottery) will reflect the city / ZIP Code of the location that you selected.
The new Local feature displays a lot of information, so you can choose to expand and collapse each of the sections (i.e., Weather, Real Time News, Gas Prices, Lottery Results) to make it easier for you to browse the home page. If you want to expand or collapse certain sections within My Local News, simply click on the arrow in front of the feature name to collapse the section or expand it. We'll remember the state (expanded/collapsed) of each local module section on future visits to the AOL.com home page.
How We Store Your My Local Choices
When you make changes to your page, like adding locations to My Local, we store those choices in a secure "cookie" on the computer that you are using. A cookie is, basically, a file that stores information you enter on a Web page, to save you time later. We use cookies on the AOL.com home page so that you don't have to Sign In or be required to have an AOL screen name to use and save your personalization options. However, deleting your browser cookies or private data will wipe out any changes you've made to your home page. Click here to learn how to protect your personalization choices.
Let us know what you think of the new My Local feature. Are we missing any information you'd like to see? Again, we look forward to your thoughts and feedback.
Learn more about the other new features:
My Stuff - your mini-dashboard with mail preview and more
Mail Preview - preview your mail from Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL
My Networks - your social networks in one place
My Links – customizable navigation
RSS Feed Browser - news and updates from other Web sites
Themes - choose your homepage design