new ALL FEEDS Widget : Netvibes Feeds Reader à la "Google Reader": 4*/5

ALL FEED is a clever Widget that will allow you to read all your Feeds in a single module.

Created by Twisterss ( Tristan Groléat), a joung and brillant widget producer (Automatic Parser 5* and Web Page Plus 5*) with ALL FEEDS you will be able also to read only the feeds of any of your individual Tab.

It is the Netvibes version of the Google Reader.

You can select:
- title
- Number of columns to display the content: 1-5
- choose the feeds from any of your Tabs or ALL of them
- to show the unread count
- Number of items to display : up to 50
and the usual opens on the site, more details and post date

The Feeds that are in your Tab or in all your page are automatically sudcribed by the ALL FEEDS widget but if you want to unsuscribe any of them, you have to find on by one the Tab where you charged them and manually delete them.

To install this Widget that has to be inlined in the Netvibes system you need to precisly follow the instructions:
1) Go to Add Content / Essential Widgets and find UWA MODULE
2) click edit copy and paste this addres: http://twisterss.free.fr/api_netvibes/allFeeds/allFeeds.htm
3) check the option "inline this widget"
4) close edit
5) Add the Widget to your page.

HOW it could be Improved ?

As ALL FEEDS reads only the feeds that you have already on your Netvibes page/tab it is a double service for the numereous persons that like the Google way to the feeds (I am not ;) ).

Probably with a widget like this you would need a much higher limit of posts than the current 50... because if you follow let's say 10 blogs or news you could only show 5 for each.


NetEx RATING: 4****/5

A Useful Widget if you like the Google Reader approach with a plus as you can have more columns to read your favorite blogs.

But, if you could add Feeds directly in the Widget and if you could operate there some filtering, then I would be obliged to give it a 5*****.

I have add it in my list of REALLY Essential Widgets on my Universe.
But only works in your private Page.

My Community: Another Really Essential Widget for Netvibes

Now that all Netvibes users are upgrading to the Ginger release, let's examine the MY COMMUNITY widget created by the Netvibes team.

The idea is to get connected to your Friends by showing in real time your Friends activities, your own public activities and having a view over who are your friends and who is following you.

The real plus offered by Netvibes is that you can star (Share as favorite) and comment also the activities of your friends !! (and not only your news feeds). That way all your friends and followers will see it and, if they want, they can also share it with others ...

You can also copy/paste in the writing box and that is cool if you need a "specific" text and you can also write url that will open in a new page. That is useful if you want to give a link to another page. Images and other contnent can only be sent by their url.

As you can see from the capture you have limited editing possibilities.

What could be improved is to give the user the possibility :

1. to star also the Friends' Update : if George wrotes: "I am a new Dad" well it could be useful to be able to share it as favorite to "send it" to other friends that perhaps are not connected with George
2. to send a message to your own private activity: If I want to write : "Send a bottle to George but not the same as the one for peter" I do not want to show that to all ;)
3. to reply to someone with @name and not show that in the profile (is not a statement)
4. to have an option for a larger window to write text
5. to have an empty option to have an empty window
6. to mix my own public activities with my friends' one: it is easier to follow discussions
7. to add an image in the field (like in Twitxr.com), not just an image url as now.
8. to be able to import here other Social Messaging activities like Twitter. A special little icon would signify that a friend messaging me is not from Netvibes, but with an option I could answer him from Netvibes. That way I will have just one Social messaging tool.
9. to modify the icon of the message sender to know if it is a Friend or a Follower (perhaps with a different border or size) : if you have many friends and followers, very often they are not the same, you could reply to persons that do not see your messages :(
   
10. to change name of the widget.

MORE GENERAL REQUEST concerning Activities:

1. I would like to come back to a way to have 2 separate activities fields: private and public. In Beta there was an option to move an activity from private to public and viceversa and I liked it. It was opening new ways to use Netvibes and the Web ;)
2. Would be nice to be able to message directly to Friend or follower, not in public
   

NetEx rating : 4****/5

An essential widget that works immediatly and that allows you to really benefit from the social side of Netvibes.

I have add it in my list of REALLY Essential Widgets on my Universe, but the full version is only available in the personal page.

This widgets comes now as default in Ginger (the new version of Netvibes) but if you need another copy, you can get it from: Add Content/Assential Widgets/My Community

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 ;)

Netvibes wants me to change my Universe name. Why ? It's a "generic term"

Remember my post about the war of Domain names in Netvibes Universes ?

I was surprised that you could choose almost any universe name you wanted.

So, I decided to try myself. I created a few Universes. One of those is:

http://www.netvibes.com/travel Not big deal, but I founded strange that Netvibes had not protect it ;).

Anyway, Netvibes has decided to act and here the email I just received today with the injunction to change my Universe name :

Dear Ginger private beta tester,

We would like to thank you for your participation in our beta
program and for the huge interest you had in creating your public
page but it has come to our attention that the name you selected
for your Netvibes universe (which appears on the URL of your
universe) may be in violation of our Terms of Service either
because this name is a generic term or because it might
potentially infringe upon the rights of third parties.

We'll soon provide new features which will make it easier for you
to share interests but in the meantime we kindly demand that you
modify this name in your profile http://www.netvibes.com/#view-profile
as soon as possible, but no later than in the next 7 days, or that
you provide us with evidence that you possess the necessary rights
to such name. If not, we would be forced to have it modified or to
suspend your account.

Thank you for your cooperation and we hope you enjoy Ginger. If
you think this email has been sent by mistake please contact
our support.
http://www.netvibes.com/static.php?show=feedback

Best Regards,

The Netvibes Team
http://www.netvibes.com/

Of course I will change it, but I wonder if Netvibes will send similar emails to the following existing Universe:

http://www.netvibes.com/news
http://www2.netvibes.com/web
http://www2.netvibes.com/sex
http://www2.netvibes.com/sexe
http://www.netvibes.com/games
http://www2.netvibes.com/auto
http://www2.netvibes.com/tech
http://www2.netvibes.com/music
http://www2.netvibes.com/photo
http://www2.netvibes.com/photos
http://www.netvibes.com/film
http://www.netvibes.com/foot

http://www.netvibes.com/france
http://www.netvibes.com/uk
http://www.netvibes.com/italy

http://www.netvibes.com/tomtom
http://www.netvibes.com/hp

I am surprised that Netvibes reacts afterwards, it could have been simpler to prevent users to choose the terms that Netvibes had reserved from a list...

How to find Friends with Netvibes' Ginger

Here is a comment I found concerning the HOW TO FIND FRIENDS with Netvibes' Ginger release:

Ginger is cool, but it is hard to find people... I suppose we are just supposed to invite our friends. Maybe add a way to find people with similar interests/feeds/widgets/etc?

In fact, when you are upgraded to Ginger, you have already 1 Friend as defualt. His name netvibes.

If you do not know already any "real" friend that is using Netvibes, a first step will be to check the followers of your only friend "netvibes" by clicking on your contacts option in the upper menu.
By browsing between the ever increasing profiles you will find some interesting universes. And by assuming that interesting universe means interesting friend you will add him/her to your list.

Last night http://www.netvibes.com/netvibes counted more than 7.000 followers and they are increasing minutes by minutes.

(at the moment I can not access the http://www.netvibes.com/netvibes profile, probably too many updates)

In the mean time, you can always check my list of preferred Universes .

If you want to add me as a friend ;), here is my Universe.

If you know somebody who could be interested by looking at your Universe you can now use the Invite a friend option.

IN THE FUTURE

If Netvibes could provide a well done search for the Universes it could be possible to find a list of users having the same feeds and widgets.
If Universes could be tagged as i suggested, by searching tags you could find friends with similar interests. You could also use localisation or age/sex group.
A proper widget (looking for a friend) could also be setted up ;)

Free Ingrid Betancourt Universe is up in Netvibes

Netvibes public pages (Universes) offer a lot of different profiles.

I take the opportunity to present a Universe that I helped to build dedicated to :

Ingrid Betancourt , hostage since February 23, 2002 !

Íngrid Betancourt Pulecio (born December 25, 1961, Bogotá and mother of two) is a Colombian politician, former senator and anti-corruption activist.

Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC on February 23, 2002 while campaigning for the presidency, after she decided to campaign in an area of high guerrilla presence and ignored warnings from the government, police and military not to do so.

She is still being held by the FARC guerrilla group as a key hostage for a possible humanitarian exchange of prisoners for hostages with the government of Colombia.

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Betancourt)

Last news coming from Columbia are not reassuring:
According to her family, she suffers from hepatitis, a recurring viral infection that affects the liver and can lead to cancer and cirrhosis."If we don't act quickly, mother will die. This is an emergency," said her son Lorenzo.

On this Universe you will find updates, news, initiatives, images and videos, online petitions...

The Free Ingrid Betancourt url is: http://www.netvibes.com/free-ingrid-betancourt

Netvibes' Ginger upgrade will give "serious" numbers on active users

As the public Ginger release of personalized homepage Netvibes is going smoothly (thanks guys ;) ), the upgrade by invitation only will give a "serious" number of active users of the service.

In the previuos versions you could register with a fake email as no check was made.

Now, not only you need a previuos inscription to Netvibes but a dobble check by email is needed to open your public page (Universe).

This procedure will reduce the number of users but will define the active ones.