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.
Still my favorite start page.
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. It's easy enough to send items from your private pages to your universe, and if you want to point people your favorite widgets or blogs, it's a simple solution. If you happen to have an online presence on several different service (for example, a professional blog, a personal blog, a social network, Delicious, Twitter, etc.), this is a way to put them all together so your friends can see what you are up to.
Now you can create a ticker of your Netvibes actions. You can see your buddies' feeds, too.
With Netvibes new "activity" window, you can now see what your friends are up to...on Netvibes, anyway. When you're in a widget on Netvibes, you can flag an item to save it to either your private or your public feed, and in the activities window you can see either your own private starred items, your public ones, or those of the people you are following. (Unfortunately, you can't see all these activities together in one window, and you can't flag an item from its detail page, only from its headline in the widget.)
The concept of following other users on Netvibes is a conceptual stretch. While it's easy enough to find other Netvibes users and add them to your Netvibes circle, one has to wonder if this bare-bones social network can possibly get traction. Netvibes Tariq Krim told me, "We wouldn't do it if we didn't add value." So, he said, "We will announce plug-ins so it can automatically sync with Twitter, Facebook, and so on."
Adding feeds and widgets in Ginger is easier thanks to a good visual directory and search function.
Maybe that will help. Krim is trying to make Netvibes into a hub for social information. If it works without requiring that your friends are also Netvibes users, it could be useful. But if it's just the Netvibes social network, I predict rather limited uptake.
Evolutionary changes in Netvibes include a better way to add content to your pages. There's a very attractive catalog of widgets you can add, and you can preview each one before you drop it on a page.
As a current Netvibes user, I like the new interface but I can't say that any of the new features bowl me over. The new methods for adding content are nice, though, and will make the service more approachable for newbies.
But the social bits are puzzling. I've never thought of Netvibes as a social platform. I don't really want it to be social. I get enough social in all the other sites I use.
I could be wrong, though. If you sign up for the Netvibes Ginger private beta, add me to your network (search for "rafe"), and we can see if we like it. Update: Webware users burned through our first allotment of invitations to the Ginger private beta very quickly, but there are 100 more invitations available here--use the new code WWMORE100.
Netvibes' new superfast mobile version.
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 device. Horizontal scrolling is dropped, for example, and everything goes vertical. However, some widgets don't work, and they just don't show up. I couldn't display my Flickr photos, for example.
The iPhone version of the same page. Better. But slower.
iPhone users get a more capable site, which, since it relies on the capable Safari browser, displays widgets with more fidelity and does a good job with graphics. It also looks really sharp on an iPhone display.
Mobile Netvibes seems to default to the lightweight site on Windows phones, and to the iPhone site if you're running the Safari browser, but you can override this and visit the iPhone version directly at iphone.netvibes.com.
Either way, this new capability adds a lot of functionality. I think it makes the service a great RSS reader (among other things) for on-the-go users.
Conduit users can now get packs of toolbars and switch between them easily.
With today's release, when Conduit users add toolbars after the first one they have, each becomes an option on a drop-down item within the toolbar. Conduit is also releasing multitoolbar packs with preloaded combinations of toolbars. There's a Blogs pack (Webware is included in it) as well as Music, Sports, Games, and Video.
I also like the notification Conduit users get when they surf to a site that has a toolbar they haven't yet installed. It's like the little RSS icon that lights up in some browsers when you go to a page with a feed. It makes it very easy to add sites to your Conduit lineup.
Conduit is, in a sense, a one line-high, single-page aggregator. You can add a lot of sites and feeds to your Conduit lineup, just like you can with a SPA, and quickly jump between them.
Developers can also write little widgets for toolbars. For example, the Lufthansa toolbar lets you look up flight data.
To get the wide view of what's important to me, I still prefer visiting a single-page aggregator like Netvibes. But Conduit is worth a look. It makes accessing your favorite sites very easy, and it adds utility to them as well.
Conduit Chief Marketing Officer Reena Jadhav explains the new features in the video at right.
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 on the upcoming Leopard OS from Apple, this does exactly the same thing.
Webwag's mobile version is a simple smattering of widgets
(Credit: CNET Networks)In addition to displaying widgets on your browser, Webwag also lets its users access widgets on their mobile phone--assuming they have one of the eight supported handsets. There's also the option to send an optimized version to generic phones based on screen resolution. The mobile version provides small, thumbnail-size versions of each widget, which can be rearranged ad hoc via the mobile module on Webwag. Users can click on any of these on their phone to see the entire feed.
I ran into only a few problems trying out the service this morning. The first is that things can be slow going. Having a few of the Widget-on-Demand modules going at a time can get a little laggy, since Webwag is continuously rendering that part of the site, instead of working on something small and simple like an RSS feed. My other quibble is with module rearrangement, which requires users to hover over the zone they want to drop a module until a little red box shows up. If you don't, your module will be relegated to a zone in the bottom of the page where you must pick it back up and restart the process. It may be a small inconvenience, but when you're trying to work with 15 or more modules, the one- to two-second delay is off-putting.
Small quirks aside, Webwag is a really solid aggregation service. It's feature competitive with some of the big boys such as Netvibes and Pageflakes, although it's a bit lacking on some of the extended theme support, module directory, and customization you get on the others. Is it worth using over the other two? While the Widget-on-Demand feature is pretty neat, ultimately it comes down to speed and the module directory--both of which leave me wanting more.
See also: Roundup: single page aggregators
Webwag's Widget-on-Demand service will grab any snippet of a Web site, and turn it into its own widget. In this case, it's the front door of CNET.com
(Credit: CNET Networks)
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.
Previous Pageflakes coverage:
Pageflakes community gets traction
Roundup: single page aggregators
Pageflakes CEO wants to take on Yahoo
Start here: Pageflakes meets the metagators
Pageflakes now has partnered sites with sponsored content. In this case it's news and stories from the Washington Post.
(Credit: Pageflakes.com)... Read more
SportSnipe is a new single-page aggregator the likes of Original Signal, PopUrls, and others, although it's focused specifically on sports feeds from all over the world. Users can browse through headlines and video thumbnails for various leagues, genres, and teams. Like Original Signal, SportSnipe has the option to hover over any headline to read the first few lines of the story, along with a comment button that lets registered users add their own commentary to the story--separate of the parent site.
The service claims to pull its headlines from over 1,300 different sports feeds. It also doubles as a regular old build-it-yourself feed aggregator similar to Netvibes and PageFlakes, albeit a little less flashy. Users can add RSS feeds as either text or video feeds. The video feed catcher is especially cool and gives you a little thumbnail for each clip. If you do this with a text feed, you won't get anything but a black box.
SportSnipe has a few ways to sort and share content. You can bookmark pages you'd like to share with others through a variety of social bookmarking sites. You can also turn off comments and hover over previews. With a quick toggle you can rearrange the feed boxes and extend the feeds to see more than just a few headlines. There are also embed codes for putting your feeds on a blog, Web site, or social networking profile (which I've done to the right.)
In many ways, SportSnipe isn't very original as a single-page aggregator. Pageflakes and Netvibes do a much better job with their presentation, and the resemblance to Popurls and Original Signal is unquestionable. However, SportSnipe has a really great directory of sports feeds that aggregate quickly and are far more comprehensive than what Original Signal offers. The video feed implementation is a nice touch as well.
More screens after the jump.
... Read more
Google is renaming its personal home page iGoogle tonight. Google is also adding a new tool called Gadget Maker that helps people create their own widgets for use on their iGoogle page. The Gadget Maker comes with seven templates, including two media gadgets to pull in content from YouTube and online and offline photo collections. Users will also be able to organize their personal space with a countdown timer and a simple 10 item to-do list. There's also a free-form widget that lets a user mix together various media such as text and pictures.
This is a step in the right direction for Google's personalized home page efforts, although not nearly as fast as some of its competitors in the single page aggregation space. Netvibes has recently come out with branded content pages, and Yourminis has taken the widgets off the browser and onto the desktop using Apollo. I'm still not a big fan of Google's layout, which feels a little boxy and restrictive, but the new themes have spiced things up.
The new features are set to launch at 9 p.m. PST tonight.
Google's new make-your-own-gadget selection features seven new gadgets that can be customized by the user.
(Credit: Google)
Newsvine, an increasingly popular news aggregation and community content publishing site, re-launched yesterday, re-branding its front page as a single page aggregator. Users can now add and re-order content modules such as weather, sports tickers, and photo slide shows. They can also add RSS feeds from external Web sites (like ours). According to the team's blog post, the addition of modules was the most commonly requested feature by users.
The change has put Newsvine in the running as a single-page aggregator, a crowded area we took a look at last month. While Newsvine doesn't seem to pose an immediate threat to some of the big players like Netvibes and Pageflakes, it's the only single-page aggregation service available that has a community of people creating and sorting written content in the same place--something that's likely to make users return.
The new front page of Newsvine has modules that can be moved around. Users with wide-screen displays also can extend it out to the sides.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Netvibes, maker of the single-page aggregator (or metagator) that I favor, is making an aggressive announcement at the Web 2.0 Expo. The company is launching the "Netvibes Universes" project. It's a simple technical improvement to the current service, but it's a bit of a business coup.
Netvibes Universes allows content creators to create custom Netvibes aggregation pages. What's technically new is that content owners can now customize the look and feel of their pages, and publish them as standalone Web pages with semifriendly URLs (for example: www.netvibes.com/icecube). Fully friendly URLS--in other words, custom Web addresses--will come later.
The business coup is that Netvibes signed up over 100 publishing partners, including recording artists like Mandy Moore and 50 Cent, and major media like Time, USA Today, and The Washington Post. All their Netvibes pages will be available on Monday.
It's hard to say if the Universes pages be better than their publishers' own home pages. They are different. A custom-designed home page can really stand out, but with more people finding content through "side doors" like blog posts, Digg, and aggregators like Netvibes, the front pages of content sites matter less than they used to. It makes sense, then, for some publishers to use off-the-shelf services like Universes to publish front pages that are almost as attractive, and far easier to modify, than all the individually coded front pages that sites now support.
Time magazine's current home page
(Credit: Time)Netvibes told me that it will make the Universes functionality available to all its users by June. At the moment, it's possible for ordinary Netvibes users to share a Netvibes page only with other users, and you can't customize the page nor specify a standalone URL for it.
In related news, Netvibes competitor Pageflakes is releasing its Flurry feature at Web 2.0 Expo. By interviewing you about your location and your interests, this update makes it even easier to get started with the service. I interviewed Pageflakes CEO Dan Cohen in February. It's a great product--I'd use it if I wasn't already hooked on Netvibes.
Both Netvibes and Pageflakes make better start pages than the majors (Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google), although in the long run that won't matter because the big guys can easily grab the lion's share of traffic. For that reason I think Netvibes' direction is very smart. Instead of focusing on making a better product for individuals, the company is now embarking on a business-to-business strategy, too, and hopes to reach new users not only directly, but through its business clients.
Read on for more preview screenshots from Netvibes.
... Read more
YourMinis, the popular single page aggregator service, has launched desktop integration with its library of over 14 million widgets, using Adobe's Apollo technology. After installing the Apollo runtime and the YourMinis Apollo plug-in on your PC or Mac, you can simply click on any widget in the YourMinis library and click "Add to Desktop." Likewise, there's the option to send any widget to the Web if you'd prefer it to stay on one of your YourMinis pages. It's really well-done.
Once they're on your desktop, you can drag them around, change colors, transparency levels, and various settings for each widget--the usual features that come with a full-fledged widget application.
Mac users likely will be uninterested with the new feature, as they've already got a built-in widget engine with OS X's Dashboard. PC users, on the other hand, now have another free way to put widgets on their desktop besides Yahoo Widgets and Google Desktop. As we've mentioned before, Apollo is still pretty early on in development, and the YourMinis widgets are RAM-hungry. With just four open, they were taking up more CPU cycles and memory than Microsoft Word and Outlook combined. It will be interesting to see how Adobe addresses this problem further along in Apollo's development.
See also News.com's take on how Apollo is 'one-upping' Ajax.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
