Pageflakes, smaller Netvibes' competitor, is acquired by Live Universe

News has just been confirmed by TechCrunch that:

" Pageflakes, a nice-looking but perennial also-ran in the world of start-page startups, has been officially acquired by Brad Greenspan’s Live Universe. Terms were not disclosed, but it was a combination of cash and stock. Pageflakes CEO Dan Cohen will remain in charge of the business and help to integrate it into LiveVideo, as well as continue to maintain it as a separate site."

"Despite its easy of use and appealing UI, Pageflakes never really took off. ComScore measured only 50,000 unique U.S. visitors in March, compared to 1.4 million for competitor Netvibes. (And 191,000 uniques worldwide in February, versus 2.4 million for Netvibes). iGoogle had 7.4 million U.S. visitors in March, and My Yahoo had 19 million."

More news on Pageflakes blog.

WZD.com: a new competitor for Netvibes

Hi,

Reading the stats of this Blog, I was attracted by an unknown short url: WZD.com . I followed the link and there it was a new Korean Competitor to Netvibes.

I do not read Korean but I was able to change my background theme and could have registred. Instead I googled for some news and here is a short description in English from WEB2.0 Asia:

"WZD.com (pronounced Wizard.com), a Korean offering of web start page, has beta launched its new version. According to 2Z, a Korean blogger (note: link in Korean), the notable features of the new version include:

• Sharing web widgets and personal pages: Users can share the widgets and startpages they created with other users. The place where these assets can be posted and shared is called "Oz".
• Better UI and design: Unlike on other startpage services, WZD.com users can freely adjust the size of the widgets. Also widgets can be overlaid on top of other widgets, not necessarily constrained to move only up and down within the given horizontal boundaries.
• Web widget API: WZD.com announced WZDAPI, a widget-creating API that's compatible with Mac OS, Google, Netvibes, etc. "

So Technical competition on the AJAX homepage platform is increasing everyday.

Among Netvibes competitors we can point:
http://my.yahoo.com/
http://www.google.com/ig
http://my.msn.com/
http://www.live.com/
http://about.aol.com/myaol
http://my.netscape.com/
http://www.protopage.com/
http://www.pageflakes.com/
http://www.webwag.com/
...
I think is time for Netvibes to go for real good content!

Home pages comparison_Part 1

Hi,

I am trying to start an Home Pages comparison.

In the mean time check this one on WebWorkerDaily. It refers to Ajax Start Pages:

1) Google’s Personalized Home Page

2) Netvibes

3) Pageflakes

4) Protopage

5) Yourminis

For each there are pro e con but the general conclusion is not yet a positive one :

"That "All those home pages" have a ways to go before they provide the informational richness and immediate action that this web worker needs. "