Customisation
Changing the look of your desktop
All sites allow you to change the look of your desktop to some degree. Live.com is the most limited, offering just five colours. The rest offer preset themes and the ability to create your own page theme, but there are varying levels of expertise required. In iGoogle you must tinker with XML. Pageflakes allows you to upload a picture for the header and background, change the links in the header, use custom CSS and change colours. In Netvibes you can nab header and page "wallpapers" from Flickr, Twitter, a MySpace profile or a particular URL. You can also alter the header height, text colour and favicons for each module.
Changing desktop looks in (clockwise from top left) Netvibes, Pageflakes, Live.com and iGoogle.
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NetEx
04/03/2008 07:57 PM
Well done review. If you want more analysis on Netvibes and its competitors you can check this site: http://netviber.blogspot.com/
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Flakey
06/03/2008 08:25 AM
Agreed that iGoogle is pretty boring. I however, think users that "want to consolidate all their Web 2.0 profiles (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr)" or create public and private pages, Pageflakes is not only capable but equally comparable to Netvibes.
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vincent
08/03/2008 08:35 PM
I agree with the verdict, new version of Netvibes "Ginger" is the best start page ever... I love the universe feature too :)
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Fact checking anyone?
09/03/2008 03:26 AM
The article has several factual errors. It seems someone got lazy. I'll hit iGoogle only for brevity: iGoogle has over 40,000 gadgets (not including RSS feeds) http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open iGoogle has tab/page sharing (check the little down arrow next to your selected tab)
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Afkarweb
14/03/2008 05:52 AM
I use NetVibes and I'm very glad ! And now u can create "Universes" and share items with friends or ... customers
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Oo
15/03/2008 01:43 AM
Netvibes rules ;)
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Mike
20/03/2008 12:53 PM
Actually, I prefer Pageflakes. To each his/her own. But I'm sticking with Pageflakes. :)
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matt
22/03/2008 09:29 PM
Another start page to consider is Odysen at http://www.odysen.com. A couple of the key differences include 1) the ability to integrate as many news feeds as you want into one widget (saving space, being more efficient) and 2) free-formatting widgets, allowing you to change the size of the widget to whatever you feel is most appropriate to the content. There is also a blog available for feature updates and page examples at http://odysen.blogspot.com.
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Mnate
28/03/2008 09:45 PM
I started using Netvibes (Ginger) recently, and I'm absolutely blown away by it's content options, interactive design, and it's incredibly clean look. Personally, I don't think that iGoogle or Live.com come close to comparison.
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Pablothehat
15/04/2008 07:31 AM
I have been using Netvibes for a couple of years now and I am still finding new stuff...Fantastic!!!
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Justin Nango
16/04/2008 10:29 AM
Exhaustive analysis. Good work. Apparently the French scene is pretty active of start pages. A new start-up recently appeared on the radar: http://www.personall.fr/. They use this web 2.0 tool to build personalized intranets.
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DTRA
29/04/2008 11:25 AM
If you're in New Zealand, and you just want a boring old quick link start page, try http://www.kiwihomepage.co.nz/
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