Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read/WriteWeb uses Netvibes as startpage. And you ?

In his recent post about Five Tools Everyone Working Online Should Have (IMHO), Marshall Kirkpatrick , influential Lead Author at Read/WriteWeb writes:

"Startpage

Every place I work I set up an RSS startpage for myself and my co-workers. Consulting clients, non-profits, anybody I can get my hands on gets a startpage before I'm done with them. I usually use Netvibes just because it's easy to share pages, the OPML handling is pretty good and the mobile version is great. The new Ginger version breaks sharing for some people, though.

I put the highest priority RSS feeds that I subscribe to on that startpage, then put a link to it on my browser toolbar. I click on that maybe once an hour and see if these top sources have anything new. It's quick and easy, much easier than opening up a whole feed reader."

You can see in the image a capture of his Netvibes page.

And you, what are you using and why ?

If you want to add the ReadWriteWeb widget on your Netvibes page, click here:

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.

Netvibes wins Mashable best start page award

Hi,

Netvibes has won the Best Start page of the first ever OPEN WEB AWARD from Mashable !

(With in excess of 5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the world's largest blog on social networking).

Other winners for 2007 are : Flickr, Youtube, Last.fm, Facebook ...

And the Ginger version in already online for everyone ....

In June, Netvibes was already awarded "The top 100 Webware sites for 2007" in the Browsers application.

Netvibes Start page is so poor for new users

Hi,

since Netvibes has decided to look for the Mainstream users, it should think more to the average new user.

Let's think about the Netvibes first page when you are not already registred with Netvibes and you are a beginner in the Web2.0 world.

What you get with no effort if you live in a European Capital (like me) and you arrive on http://www.netvibes.com/ because you read about it or a friend sent you an email about it ?
You get that (see the screen shot)

1. The weather widget already set to your Internet Supplier hometown (this city can be some KM away from your actual place)


2. a Feed from the Natioanl news papers (also given by your IP address)


3. a Feed from the national Tv/radio (also given by your IP address)
4. an Unknown Blog feed


5. an Email Widget assistant


6. a Video search widget set on :" music"


7. a Web search widget


8. the netvibes blog feeds


9. a Webnote with a short welcome message by Netvibes


10. a todo widget


11. a facebook widget


12. an Image search widget set on "lighthouse"

In conclusion: very little Local content that could give to the new user the sense of what a great service Netvibes could give him/her.

Even if the new user select s, in the settings the Local content all what he can get is a list in the left side bar of a selection of News feeds (not a complete one and with no description).

Netvibes should remeber that "new users" do not know what to use Netvibes for when they saw Netivibes for the first time !

SOLUTIONS:

Netvibes, could have easily supplied the new user with a widget search in the Ecosystem for the city and Country name if they had asked him at some point !

Or better, some one could have prepared a "best of" for each country with a selection of major cities to be promped at any new user.

Position of Netvibes in the Starting Pages market

Hi,

here is a comment I posted in the ReadWriteWeb post about the position of Netvibes in the market of Starting Pages:

"Netvibes is not the pioneer of startpages, but if you consider WEB 2.0 market for startpages, Netvibes is, at the moment, the leading competitor in terms of:
1) independence from MegaGroups,
2) collaborative creation of content,
3) overall quality,
4) international openess,
5) general compatibility (IE, FF..; PC-MAC, PC-mobile,)...

In my point of view what is missing is the attractiveness for the BIG AUDIENCE.

In my analysis, Netvibes and the other starting pages are used mainly used for Feed reading.

All the other possible practical uses are yet to be publicised (or discovered).

But CONTENT is always the key for success. It must not be Netvibes OWN content but a starting page has to give you the content you need (even if you do not know it already). "

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. "