I visited the Netvibes Team in their Paris' Office

Last Friday, I was in Paris (France) and received a kind invitation to visit the Netvibes office that I accepted immediately :)

First, let me thanks Franck Mahon (VP, Product Development) and François Bureau (in charge of Custumer care) that for a few hours accepted to discuss freely with me (as an average user) of some of the hot topics about Netvibes.

I had the pleasure to get a preview of the new Google search integrated search box that today you have found in your Netvibes page.

Some other cool features are on the way (new activities Dashboard, ...) but I agree with Franck: let's announce them when they are ready and working ;)

Second, I would thank all the Netvibes team: it is a small team (20-30 people) of young men and, yes, women working hard to offer the best service to an audience of very difficult users (not all, ok, but some :) ).

Third, Tariq Krim, the founder and still shareholder of Netvibes, is not anymore there. His office, is now empty but the Team works as before. The pace and targets for Netvibes are setted and the step by step long term strategy is there focusing on improving the Homepage service and at the same time developping the Widgets distribution and that was one of my main concerns.

When Franck asked me why users were so much interested in Netvibes revenues, compared to other companies, my instinctive answer, to a question that I never thought before, was: "because I like so much the service that I want to be sure that Netvibes will be there in 1- 2- 3 -5 years!"

Later, on my way to home, I thought that I never thought this before for any other service.
I do not care about Twitter or Facebook financial situation.

If with Netvibes is different, is because, as a user, I have the feeling that Netviber is listening at my requests. And it is true: Franck and François read all the posts and comments about the Netvibes service and the Team tries always to improve.
Have you seen the new Netvibes_Help service on Twitter ? Others are copying it now.

I love so much the service that I have also offered to be the first paying suscriber to a Netvibes Delux edition (Franck, my coins are still on the table ;) ) as, of course, early subscribers will get a special price... and a picture on the wall.

But good news: Revenues are "already growing in line with business plan" and more good news are coming...

Fourth, Franck and François are very polite persons as, at my request to know what was my most stupid post on this blog, they were kind enough to answer that there were a few but none was presented to me...

Just François, recommended me that if I had any problem with Netvibes to complain directly to the Feedback service instead of any other way, because the feedback form allows Netvibes to help you sooner and better. (I will make a post on that)

So, in conclusion, a very instructive afternoon and a regret: not having the time to talk and thank all the other individual team members about their own job and visions.

Ding, ding, ding !! (private joke) See you next time !!

New Activities Dashboard for Netvibes in the pipeline with Buzz and Public stream ?

that would be nice :)

HP launches TouchSmart Pc and I like it.

The Touchscreen is the new trend and one by one everyone is going there.

Check this demo from HP of their new TouchSmart IQ500 Series PC.

It is more a Family Media Center than an office PC but is the first time that I find an HP product with a smart style that also my wife could like.

Good demo ;)

Thanks Mauriz for the tip!

NetEx Blog is first on Google.com for : Wimbledon 2008 Widget

check it here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wimbledon+2008+widget&btnG=Google+Search


Pity, that I have just reviewed it with a 1*/5 :)

Don't like Tennis ? Get Comics widgets on your Netvibes

If you are not in Tennis or Sports, or if you want to change subject, netvibes has prepared a selection of Comic Strips widgets.

In another effort from Netvibes, to offer some content to new users, the selection is presented on the Netvibes Universe, just go here: If you like the widget, click on it and it will be added to your own Netvibes page.


You will see Classic Comics as:

Dilbert,
Calvin & Hobbes,
Garfield,
Snoopy,

or new characters as:

XKCD,
Ctrl+Alt+Del,
Penny Arcade,
Cathy
Kawaii

Enjoy!

As a matter of fact, the one I prefer is the little lady with green shoes designed by Karine. Would love to have a daily widget from her ;)

I compared 4 news aggregators in my Netvibes: Wikio, Google news, Inform and Topix.

As often as with subjects that I want really to follow well, I need more than one source. So, this time I wanted to compare 4 different automatic news portals in my Netvibes page: Wikio, Google news, Inform and Topix.

As you can see from my capture, I have setted all 4 with the same number of feeds and details and I have selected also the publishing by date. Wikio and Topix are publishing also pictures.

What is interesting and contrary to my expectations is that the 20 news on my screen are all different ! That depends of course on sources and methodology and on the date of publishing.

That would also suggest that all 4 portals have different approaches that could appeal to different users.

For Wikio I have choosen the Wikio.co.uk (as the Wikio.com was less focused on the tournament and a special human created directory: http://www.wikio.co.uk/sport/tennis/tennis_tournaments/wimbledon.
Wikio searches the medias but also the blogs (if pertinent).

For Google News it is the .com edition and the search string is just Wimbledon and Google news is limited at the media (no blogs). The same works for Inform which presents a selection of UK media sources. Topix checks thousands of sources.

I must confess, with just this 20 results, I am not able to choose which is working best. I will have to look a them, over time.

But if things remain like that, I think that I will keep just Wikio and Google news to check eachother as the human content selected sources (blogs included) of Wikio can correct the full automated Google news based on ranking.

And you, what is your favorite and why ?

If you want you can check my Tab in my Universe.

I have the official Wimbledon 2008 Widget :( just 1*/5

I just found the official Wimbledon 2008 Widget for the Tennis Championships:
It is distributed by Clearspring.com and sponsored by IMB. And it gives scores, news and palyer info.

But this Widget does not work properly with Netvibes and my FF3 even with the dedicated Netvibes download option.
Sizes are not working properly (as they look inverted) and there is no way to move in the widget area as no scroll is available :(
Are they using UWA ? Not sure...



NetEx Rating: 1*/5
The worst possible result for a Widget : Just a big Ad and no way to use the widget :(

If somebody want to test the widget and try to fix it, click here :

My Facebook page has ADS not my Netvibes ...

and I can ask for more

No good Wimbledon 2008 widget available ? I have for you a feed, a radio and video on demand

As Netvibes has not (yet?) any Wimbledon 2008 Tennis Championships widget to offer, I have decided to check the Web for you, and me ;)

First stop: the Wimbledon web site : all the news, the pics and , of course, the scores.

An the official RSS feed is also available :
click here to add it now to your Netvibes page



But there is more:

You can listen to Wimbledon Live Radio

and if you really want more, there is also the Video On Demand :


And WEB 2.0 is not forgotten: you have a small window on the right column: My Wimbledon ;) : you can choose your top 5 preferred players and follow their results and news.

If you know other interesting sources, let me know.

Netvibes is Back :)

My Netvibes is still down

Netvibes is no more a Start-Up

With the replacement of Tariq Krim by Freddy Mini as new CEO, Netvibes has given a clear sign that the almost 3 year long Start-up phase of the project is now finished.

Many well informed insiders, as Pierre Chappaz (shareholder and former co-CEO of Netvibes and actual CEO of Wikio.com ), have declared : Netvibes is now entering the monetization phase.

On the practical side what does it mean ?

First, it is the end of all those activities for which no revenues are at sight and that could mean a reduction in the Social Features or at least not a futher development.

Second, Netvibes will move to look for a broader massive distribution as the recent deal with the French largest Cable company (Numericable.fr) by which the 4.8 million users of Numericable will be able to access a "personal" mynumericable.fr homepage. " my numericable is a completely customizable web portal for Numericable customers. MyNumericable lets users access personalized TV schedules, email, billing services, local news, weather, games, blogs, widgets and other popular services like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube—all from a single, convenient startpage, powered by Netvibes". This personal homepage is provided by Netvibes as a premium Universe.

Third, an increase of the offer of Widgets, produced and or supported by Netvibes in the hope that the long waited boom in that market will give Netvibes the revenues it still looking for.

For the average end-user, as myself, all that could mean:

• less "glamour and hipe" that only Tariq Krim was able to create around Netvibes
• lesser options to choose from as that is increasing complexity and then costs
• lesser development of the Social side of Netvibes that could have create a real Netvibes'community around the service
• lesser interest from Netvibes team to create my long dreamed Single Social Interface

I hope to be wrong on many issues ;) as I think Netvibes is now just at half of its potential and that the most interesting part of the Service is yet to come.

Netvibes will be off-line this Sunday: maintenance

The Netvibes Blog has announced a 2 hours break in service for Maintenance for this Sunday:

"In order for us to prepare some upcoming features we have a maintenance job to do this week-end. We'll have to bring the site offline for around 2 hours Sunday 22nd of June at 6am UTC (which makes it Saturday 21st at 11pm PST for our users on the West Coast).

During that time we'll also update part of the backend to improve performances.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this might cause you and would like to thank you for your support."

I suggest you take the usual precautions and also add a few hours to the expected break ;)

Hope that in case of longer wait, Netvibes will use its blog and/or its Twitter/netvibes_help to keep us informed... Not everybody will be out this Sunday :)

I want to tag, search and store my Share/Star It activities in Netvibes

It is a few monthes that the Ginger release of Netvibes is out and one of the features that I prefer is the Share/Star of My Activities.

I use it to bookmark pages, ideas, blogs, urls that I want to keep for a later use and/or reading. I use it a lot: at least 4-5 times a day.

I like it because I can also choose to publish it with a comment to all "my friends" or just to keep it for me (private).
I like it also because with FireFox I can use the Star button in my browser or the bookmarklets if the add-on is not installed and also the Star it button if placed by websites.
I like it because I can see and read what my friends shared and starred.

But, I have a big problem: as I have now a lot of them and all this Shared/Starred activities are just visible in my Activities by clicking on Activities in the upper menu.

They are presented in a the "most recent first" order and there is a search button.
The search is based on all Activities (mines + friends) and on words. Then the results are presented just with this little black window.

The My Comunity widget is ok but presents only the last 25 activities... and there is no search

I want more !

With my Share/Star it Activities I would like to be able to:

• separate Shared Url from other activities (as shared widget)
• separate my activities from others
  
• have the possibility to store the share urls with folders or tags or...
• be able to rate (1 to 5) the activity
  
• to move and rename and delete some of the urls shared
• search by date and tag
• to save , backup and export/import

I hope I am not the only one in this situation and to not send me to http://del.icio.us/ ;)

So, if you are a developer you should start reading this (Netvibes Developers Forum)

Netvibes loves FireFox 3 but recommends also IE7 and Safari 3+

In the day of World Record for most daily downloads software by FireFox 3, Freddy Mini, the new CEO of Netvibes, declares in his first post on Netvibes blog that:

Netvibes loves FireFox 3 for speed, memory usage, addon ... well I had already wrote it yesterday ;)
Another big advantage is in the Javascript management (" tests using the SunSpider framework have shown Javascript, which Netvibes is intensively using, to be running up to 3 times faster" )

Mini concludes: "the Netvibes team is recommending to its Firefox users to migrate to this new release"

In general, Netvibes recommends:

• Firefox 3: http://www.mozilla.com
• Internet Explorer 7: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
• Safari 3+: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/

and supports the following Browser versions:

• Mozilla Firefox 1+: http://www.mozilla.com
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 & 7: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
• Opera 9.02: http://www.opera.com
• Safari 2+: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/

Download today FireFox 3 and help your Netvibes and set new world record !

If you like your free Netvibes homepage and RSS reader, you will love FireFox 3, the new free web browser to be launched today.

FireFox 2, the previous version, was the best browser to use with my Netvibes: with the add2netvibes extensions, the bookmarklets, the print option in all your widgets, the download speed, the memory usage ...

So Help your Netvibes page: download the new FireFox 3 !

At the same time you can help FireFox 3 break the world record for most software downloads in 24 hours : today, Tuesday 17th of June, is Download Day 2008.

Follow this link : http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord
and add yourself to the over 1.6 million users that will partecipate in this event.

FireFox 3 with more than 15,000 improvements, is faster, safer and smarter than previous versions and competitors.

I have so many Good friends on Netvibes... It is stupid to follow them on ... FriendFeed, no ?

After a few monthes with Netvibes' Ginger , I have now a good community of good Netvibes' Friends.
They are not my "real friends" that I meet in "real life". But they are good friends there on Netvibes. They have good suggestions, good readings. They open my vision with their own. They read things I was not aware and that I start to appreciate.
With time I had to drop some of the first friends I had add : their interests were too far from mine. But now my 160 friends are a good mix.

The most active of my Friends are just 20 or so but the "My Community" widget is now too small for me. I am not able to check all their interesting messages and favorites directly in the widget. And I can not be on Netvibes all day ;)

I can, of course go to the my Activity, in the upper menu but the reading is less pleasant.

Another solution is to go to FriendFeed.
There I can check again for my good Netvibes friends, add them to my profile and then check from there without any limitation. I will also be able to check all their activities not just their Netvibes' post.

I do not know why, but I found that stupid... And you ?

Anyway, here is my FriendFeed profile: http://friendfeed.com/netex
If you are following me on Netvibes and want to follow me there...

Follow the Euro 2008 with Netvibes (4*/5) and other Footbal widgets

Now that Euro 2008 has started you will realize that you need to know that match result or to check the standings or want to read the last updated news or to follow the live result of a match playing.

For that Netvibes has prepeared a nice and cool Euro 2008 public Universe Tab : one in English and one in Français.
The tab in the Universe in English presents only US widgets for a sport called "Soccer" :)

If you prefer more European Football widgets (it's Euro 2008 , no ?) like the one's by: UEFA, BBC, SKY and other languages as Gazzetta, L'Equipe, ... you should check also my own public universe Football Tab:

http://www.netvibes.com/sport#FOOTBALL

and my new Euro 2008 Tab:

http://www.netvibes.com/sport#Euro2008


I invite you nto go there and check for yourself the widgets you prefer... The Netvibes Widget Euro2008 is a must.(4*/5)

To get any of them, yust click on the envelope on the right side of the title of the widget.

Good move by Netvibes, that now presents its human collected content with the Universes and not just a blog post!


Enjoy !! and I hope that my team will win :-)

Try PicLens (full-screen, 3D experience for viewing photos and videos across the web) and you will never search images again as before 5*/5

WE's time and I was reading the Economist. Yes, the paper edition ;)
An I just wanted to check a tip from them: " New techniques to navigate and gather information online promise to revolution web browsing".

And it is true ! I tried this PicLens from Cooliris: it can be installed as an add-on on Firefox (mine is FF2) and it is possible to use it also with :
Firefox (Windows)
Firefox (Mac)
Internet Explorer
Safari (Mac)

"PicLens transforms your browser into a PicLens transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing photos and videos across the web. With one click, PicLens makes online media come to life via an immersive presentation that goes beyond the confines of the traditional browser. for viewing photos and videos across the web. With one click, PicLens makes online media come to life via an immersive presentation that goes beyond the confines of the traditional browser."

It is fast, smooth, elegant and effective. With you mouse, you move the wall of images as they appear from right to left or the left to right. You want to see one you click on it. Zoom in it ? click again.

Up there you can see the capture for a Google Image Search for : Galaxy Milky Way
and down here is the same search in "normal" Browser view...

NO WAY , I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO NORMAL SEARCH !
Forget clicking page after page in search of the right image!They are all displayed in an endless wall... For me is Science-fiction coming true !



A search is integrated in PicLens but just a simple one (no image size)

Check here the Demo, is really working like that and I have an "2 years old" laptop :)




Here are theother services that are supported:

	Photo	Social	Image Search	Webhosts/Galleries
	Flickr Photobucket Picasa Web Albums Fotki FotoTime deviantART Smugmug	Facebook MySpace Bebo Hi5 Friendster	Google Images Yahoo Images Ask Images Live Images AOL Images	Freewebs TTG Galleries (Lightroom) Phoca Gallery (Joomla)

And it works also with YouTube videos ...

I hope Netvibes, will be included soon ...


NetEx RATING: 5*/5
PicLens: is fast, smooth, elegant and effective.