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.

Tariq KRIM steps down as Netvibes'CEO and is replaced by Freddy MINI

Fresh news from TECHCRUNCH blog:

"Tariq Krim is stepping down as CEO of Netvibes to “spend less time day-to-day” at the company and work on a “new project,” he tells me. (More details on that project later). He will remain on the board of the company and as a non-executive strategic adviser. Current Netvibes COO Freddy Mini will take over the helm as CEO."

“My role was to transfer Netvibes from a personal start page into a widget platform,” says Krim. He feels that the technical foundation for that shift has been completed with the recent release Ginger, the latest version of its site. "

Well, that is a big change and probably a necessary one. But Netvibes is losing a charismatic figure.

Pierre CHAPPAZ, former Co-CEO of Netvibes and founder of Kelkoo and Wikio, an actual investor in Netvibes comments on his own blog that:

"I think it's a good decision. Freddy Mini, Chief Operating Officer of Netvibes for 2 years and based in San Fransisco, has incomparable experience: he was CEO of ZDNet Europe. and then Musicme, before agreeing to join us at Netvibes in 2006. "

"When I resigned from my position as co-CEO last year in order to concentrate my efforts on Wikio , I highlighted how the strategy of distribution and monetization at Netvibes seemed to me essential for success . With Freddy's insistence, Netvibes has in the last year taken great strides in this direction and progressed significantly, supplying a number of large media sites with a personal page service that they could take on and redistribute with their own colors. Freddy is without a shadow of a doubt the man for the job, to continue to develop the distribution, and the widget market, for which Tariq was a true visionary. "

What is strange is that the news is not coming out on any of the Netvibes' Official Blogs, Forums or Streams...

A lack of confidence in Netvibes' own captive audience ?
Shoudn't this news been given to Netvibes' users before anyone else ?
I think so!

Anyway, Thanks Tarik ! :)

Why Netvibes Unique Users are decreasing since the Ginger release ?

Why the Netvibes' number of Unique Visitors, as measured by Compete.com, has decreased since January 2008 ? Netvibes remains by far the best of the independent homepages with more than 4 times users than its competitors pageflakes.com and protopage.com . But the new Ginger release update has not produced any increase in users numbers.

That is strange as Ginger, the "social twist" version of Netvibes, opened to all Netvibes users beginning of March, and I would have expected that this could increase the users' base not the contrary : a huge loss of 22% in just a month !

For sure the problems related to the implementation of the new Ginger have caused some flection in the numbers but ... let's check figures with an other "troubled" service as Twitter and a new star as Friendfeed.


Twitter is not stopping its tendency to increase users' base (+30%) and remember that only Twitter web users are counted here (no mobiles or other web applications). Just FriendFeed had also a little drop for April figures.

Of course, Compete.com stats are based on US users, so Netvibes that has an international base is not fully represented by those figures. For that reason, I checked also the numbers for Wikio.com (the US version of Wikio, the European based blogs and news feed aggregator).

And you can see, that Wikio is still far from Netvibes numbers but its trend is always positive.

But, although unique visitors and page views are critical pieces of the puzzle - these metrics often fail to accurately measure engagement on sites using technologies such as AJAX (as Netvibes) and online video.

(comments from Compete.com :

Attention is a powerful way to plan and measure the web because it is a finite resource that we manage selfishly. We grant our attention to people, activities and websites that merit receiving our most precious resource - time. If a site can garner more of an individual's time it should generally be considered a good thing. With that said, there are exceptions (Search Engines for example), which is why we don't present Attention as the king of all metrics. We see Attention as an additional piece of the puzzle.

Attention is graphed using a stacked area chart, which shows how the Attention for each individual site contributes to the total Attention for all sites in the chart. Note that the area for each individual site uses the site below it as a baseline - thus the order of the sites will affect the appearance of the graph. )

So here is the Graph of Attention for Netvibes:

Even on Attention, there is a decrease for Netvibes on the contrary of Twitter.

For sure, Netvibes has not become a viral social application.

So, what Netvibes shall do next ? I think that we need to wait for the May stats before making any judgement.

If you have ideas or insight on the subject do not hesitate to let me know...

Ouriel Ohayon from TechCrunch checks his Netvibes page before working. And you ?

Ouriel Ohayon, has just sent this Tweet on his Twitter and I , with his 1.479 followers, could read:

"coffee, twits, friendfeed, techmeme, RSS, flicr, netvibes then, only, then, work"


Ouriel Ohayon, one of the most influent French (and international) Blogger, in addition of his many professional internet activities is contributing to TechCrunch.com one of the largest blog on earth and editing the French edition of TechCrunch.

Ohayon is involved in the following Web 2.0 companies:

• TechCrunch
• Ads-Click
• playSPEX
• VesTopia
• Outbrain
• StyleShake
• Wikio
• LGilab
• Bahu.com

Want to be a Beta tester for ... Wikio ?

You want to be one of the first to test the new EUROPA service from WIKIO ?

then reply with :

1° first name
2° last name
3° email

First 10 will go ;)

Tariq KRIM interviewed after CHAPPAZ quits Netvibes

Hi,

Tariq KRIM (CEO and founder of Netvibes) has given his first interview at neteco.com a French website about the net economy. and he speaks about the situation after former Co-CEO Pierre Chappaz has left the company with some other top managers.

First, Tariq presents the Top Managers of Netvibes:
Franck Mahon , Lead product manager
Francois Hodierne, Chief Architect
Freddy Mini, COO
Annabelle Malherbe, CFO

On the points of disagreement with Pierre Chappaz , Tariq Krim says:
" I did not share with (Pierre) him the urgency to compromise our product strategy by offering services as third partiy suppliers ."

On the Competition from Wikio (founded and managed by Pierre Chappaz) with their new RSS service, Tariq Krim says that Netvibes is already the Third Source for RSS reading (according to Feedburner : well here we see Fourth...)

On Revenues, Tariq Krim is explicit when he says that RSS will only give marginal revenues and that he believes more on Widgets monetisation. "We work at the moment with numerous partners on monetization and branding of the Widgets".

Tariq Krim clarifies also that there was no disagreement with Chappaz on the Exit strategy or Selling Out.