netvibes

PageOnce provides overview of Web activity, social and financial

PageOnce is a very new take on an old idea. Take your standard widget-based feed reader such as Pageflakes or Netvibes and replace its blog and RSS feed widgets with financial tracking tools to let you keep an eye on bank accounts, credit card transactions, and various bills. It promises to offer you all the things you love about accessing your private personal information, while presenting it like you're scoping out your favorite feeds about gadgets and odd news.

One of PageOnce's best features is that it's very fast, and makes it easy to get going. There's a directory of pre-existing services to choose from, and if you come across one that's not listed you can send in a request for it to be added. I very easily found my bank, phone provider, and various credit card accounts. It also let me add things such as my Facebook news feed, Netflix queue, and mileage number from my airline--something I don't really need to check on a daily basis, but why not add it, right?

Like the service's namesake would suggest, all this action takes place on one page, but you can also cycle through the six major categories (finance, shopping, e-mail, etc.) as you would using self-created tabs on other customizable start pages. The added benefit of going to each of these specialized pages is that the widgets are larger and contain their entire set of data instead of just a brief overview. This was especially useful for my cellular phone bill, which offered up a forecast of how many minutes I was on track to using by the end of the billing cycle, something my carrier doesn't even offer on its billing pages. On the other hand, you can't reorder what's on any of the pages, which is incredibly useful, and will hopefully be added in later versions.

My one reservation with using services like this, and others that deal with financial data (see Mint and Wesabe) are that they just freak me out. There's just something about giving a third party service so much of my personal financial information, that it doesn't matter how secure it is, or how much the data is anonymized on the way there. That said, PageOnce uses a variety of bank-level security measures to keep your data safe including high-level encryption, SSL, firewalls, and vulnerability tests from third party security consulting agencies.

The service is currently in private beta, although we've got 500 invites that have been made available to Webware readers. You can get yours by going here.

[Thanks to Webware reader Kyle for the tip]… Read more

Netvibes gets unnecessary social features

My favorite start page, Netvibes, is getting an interesting upgrade. The new "Ginger" version gets social features for sharing your start-page widgets and layouts, as well as a status feed reminiscent of Facebook and Twitter. Netvibes Ginger also makes it easier to add content to your pages.

The site will be updated with the Ginger release in mid-February, but we have some invitations to the private beta now...read down to the end for details.

With Ginger, all Netvibes users get a "universe" page--a public, shared collection of widgets and tabs that anyone can access. Here's a quick example. … Read more

Netvibes widgets now available on Google, Vista, Mac...

Netvibes CEO Tariq Krim Twittered earlier today from the Widget Summit, "Just finished my talk at Widget Summit announcing that Netvibes widgets works now on Vista, Live.com, and Yahoo Widgets." This is great news for widget fans, like me, who are often frustrated to find that a module they like on one platform (say, Netvibes) isn't available on another (Yahoo) or vice versa. Today, when it comes to widgets, no matter which platform you use, you lose.

Netvibes' Universal Widget API (UWA) is a big step in the right direction. It's been developing since March … Read more

Netvibes now feeding business customers

This morning Netvibes is launching Premium Universes, a new program for businesses to get their own branded start page that can be integrated into their existing site, without jettisoning users off elsewhere. The intent is for site users to get the same functionality they'd get at Netvibes.com, while at the site owner's page. Site owners in turn, can place as much advertising outside of the Netvibes page as they'd like, supplementing the use of the service--and hopefully their revenue.

In terms of features, there's really nothing new from the Netvibes Universe program that launched in mid-April. … Read more

Only2Clicks does eye-friendly start pages

Only2Clicks is one of the few Web services I've seen lately whose name tells exactly what it does. The concept is pretty straightforward--set up your favorite Web sites, and the service will load them up in a grid, with photo thumbnails for each. You can add and remove any number of sites, and the thumbnails will be refreshed each time you reload the page. You can also re-organize the links with simple drag and drop. The idea is to set Only2Clicks as your start page, so you'll be able to quickly eyeball each site before figuring out where … Read more

Netvibes goes mobile, for real this time

Single-page aggregator Netvibes quietly launched a mobile version of its site in February. It was a bit of a hack: If you created a "mobile" tab, then when you visited Netvibes from your mobile, the feeds you put in that tab would show up.

Today, Netvibes has gone to the next step with two new mobile sites. The lightweight mobile version of the site, m.netvibes.com, doesn't require any special tabs. On your mobile you can select any tab you've created on your desktop or laptop, and it displays almost everything, formatted for the small … Read more

Jacked launching Netvibes-like platform for live TV

This weekend Jacked.com is launching the first stages of its service. The easiest way to describe it is like a souped-up Netvibes you can use as a reference while watching live television programming. The service is rolling out its features slowly, beginning with a partnership with Notre Dame and NBC Sports to serve up real-time content for Notre Dame's football season which starts on Saturday. NBC is billing the service as "Play Action." You can visit the site now, but there won't be anything on it until game day.

Jacked is linked up to what you're watching on TV, so say you're watching the game, and a player scores. Jacked's smattering of Web widgets will pull up the player's stats, photos, related news stories, a comparison chart of that play to others, etc. The idea is to save you from having to track down player, team, and historical information on your own, and serving it up automatically.

The widgets are powered by a group of underlying technologies that scan through live TV content and grab bits and pieces of information from its metadata. Combine that with things like optical character recognition, and you've got lots of information to work with. The result is an impressive array of widgets, that--when viewed during a live broadcast--will pull up information and related content seconds after it happens.… Read more

Facebook for Netvibes: Steals pageviews, productivity

Netvibes has a brand-new, first-party widget for Facebook that's been making the rounds today. It came in just after the publication of our Newbie's Guide to Facebook, but it would definitely have made the cut as a useful add-on. The custom module does what several of the third-party Facebook widgets manage, but with a good feeling of snappiness and a nice, clean layout. You can view the latest status messages from your friends, see if you have new messages, pokes, friends requests, or invitations to groups or events. There's also a link to your status, and any … Read more

A look at Webwag, single page aggregator for your phone and PC

Webwag is a single-page aggregator that's been around for nearly a year now. Like other similar services, it lets users create one or more customized start pages, filled with modules of content that update continuously throughout the day. These feeds can be searched and browsed through a fairly large directory, along with the capability to drop in any old RSS feed. What's a little cooler, however, is Webwag's Widget-on-Demand tool, which will let you grab a live snippet of any Web page, and turn it into its own widget. If you're familiar with the Webclips service … Read more

Feed your social network with Pageflakes Blizzard

Pageflakes has just updated their service this morning with a handful of new features. The company is calling this latest release "Blizzard." Users now get their own profile page and can link up with other Pageflakes users as friends. They can also browse through users by interest, based on items they've put together on their customized Pagecasts. The goal is to make the service feel like less of a solitary experience and make it easier to share user-created Pagecasts.

Also new is the option to completely customize a page. There are themes and simple color arrangements for users to pick from, and a tool to create your own. In the same vein, there are now media pages from third-party content providers and sponsors, nearly identical to what competitor Netvibes rolled out with their Universes feature in mid-April. Pageflakes is launching this feature with themed content pages from CNN, AOL, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post, among others.

To help users find content to add to their pages, Pageflakes has also redone their widget gallery, which they call "flakes." There are about a quarter of a million widgets, which is about twice that of Netvibes.

The Blizzard release also opens up the door to users of Apple's Safari browser, who up until now have been unable to access the site. However, there's no news on whether an iPhone-friendly version of the start page service is in the works. To see more shots of the new features, click the read more link below.

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