Netvibes: Why Set Your Home Page Anywhere Else

By Guest on Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Filed Under: Web Apps | Visited 877 times, 4 so far today

Personalized homepage apps are amazingly abundant and all are easily customizable and easy to use. It’s an amazing concept, being able to have access to information, news, photos, and your daily to-do list from practically anywhere in the world.

Netvibes is one of these applications that allows you to set up your homepage to your liking. Those familiar with Google’s iGoogle will recognize Netvibes for what it is. Though I do find Netvibes to be aesthetically more appealing with it’s rich dark tones, and the text stands out from the background making it easier to read.

So let’s look under the hood and see what Netvibes really provides:

Interface Design: Sleek and visually appealing. Everything I need to set up my personalized homepage is easily identifiable and laid out where I would expect the options to be. The surface for your widgets is substantial and even they have their own colorful flair to distinguish them from their brethren. What I especially like is the middle bar for settings does not take you to a new page, but instead slides out a menu where you can make adjustments on the fly without ever leaving your page. This is something that iGoogle lacks. You can delete widgets in iGoogle, but if you want to play with settings you typically have to leave the page to set them.

Widget Options: Definitely not a problem in this department either. The windows for the widgets are sizable, crystal clear, and very colorful. I honestly found more useful widgets for Netvibes then I did on iGoogle, but that could just be a matter of preference. Everyone’s tastes are different, so perhaps for you, the widgets you want are not available. Still, I went through most of the entire catalog and cannot imagine how someone would not find what they are looking for. The widgets move about the interface with just a drag and drop ability. As you move them the rest of the widgets move and adjust accordingly, again, similar to iGoogle’s design.

Social Aspect: This is where Netvibes sets itself apart. With the online community congregating around social networks, Netvibes stands heads taller above the rest by integrating several popular social networking sites into it’s search engine to find other friends that use their service. This creates a community where you can share directly with others, and even include your friend’s front page on your page. The idea was pretty amazing, and the concept very original. Unlike other spaces where you have to pick and choose what you want to share, and then have to go through permissions drama, Netvibes makes sharing easy and even fun.

Regarding the social aspect, the “Universe” ideas is simply awesome! Now the pages you put together can be published through Netvibes and pushed out into the internet community for others to view and interact with as well. Your pages might give you some popularity among certain circles and now your friend count through Netvibes will naturally increase. A very interesting way to meet someone, via their Netvibes page.

Overall Netvibes is definitely a recommendation for those that look to increase their social activity online, meet new people to share new things with, and be a part of something bigger than their normal online experience. If you prefer just straight up information with no community because of lack of time or interest, stick with sites like iGoogle, their app is just as easy to use and provides a more simplified experience.