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Start-page smackdown: Netvibes, Pageflakes, iGoogle and Live.com

By Ella Morton on 04 March 2008

Start pages

Personalised start pages -- also known as Web desktops, Ajax desktops, customisable portals and metagators -- have been kicking around for several years, but recent improvements in looks and functionality have resulted in a heap of competitors vying for the right to be your homepage.

If you're not familiar with the enticing world of start pages, here's a quick run-down. These services, which include the likes of Netvibes, Pageflakes, Microsoft's Live.com and iGoogle, have two main components: feeds and widgets. Feeds allow you to view content from a heap of different Web sites on one page by subscribing to the sites through RSS. Widgets are interactive apps that do everything from monitoring your eBay auctions to converting currency.

From top: Live.com, Pageflakes, iGoogle and Netvibes

The convenience factor is the main appeal of start pages -- instead of visiting 10 sites every morning, you just load your browser -- but recent releases of Netvibes and Pageflakes have introduced a comprehensive community aspect. In a similar way to social sites like Twitter and Facebook, you can create a profile, add contacts and then follow their pages and activities.

What start page do I choose?
Ready to sign up and revolutionise your Web habits? Great stuff! The first choice to make is which service to use, and that's what this article is all about. We put four sites -- the aforementioned Netvibes, Pageflakes, Live.com and iGoogle -- through stringent testing according to the three Cs: content, customisation and community. Though all share the same key features and appearance, there were big differences in how they performed. Read on to find out which Web desktop is right for you.

A few points to note before we get into it:

  • Wondering why we haven't included My Yahoo? Granted, it's also a start page service, but it does not allow developers to create and share their own widgets. Due to this limitation, we haven't featured it in the round-up.
  • For Netvibes, we are referring to the Ginger release, which is still in Beta. Many of the remarks we make also apply to the current public release (Coriander), with the main difference being in community features. We're expecting to see the full release of Ginger any day now, so there's not long to wait.

Topics: netvibes, pageflakes, igoogle, google, widgets, homepage, flakes, modules, live.com, start, page

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Comments (14)

  • hi commented on 04/04/2009 05:59 Report abuse

    I don't know but I now about wrestlemania who is going to wrestlemania??

  • m.afzaal commented on 25/12/2008 20:00 Report abuse

    as

  • DTRA commented on 29/04/2008 11:25 Report abuse

    If you're in New Zealand, and you just want a boring old quick link start page, try http://www.kiwihomepage.co.nz/

  • Justin Nango commented on 16/04/2008 10:29 Report abuse

    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.

  • Pablothehat commented on 15/04/2008 07:31 Report abuse

    I have been using Netvibes for a couple of years now and I am still finding new stuff...Fantastic!!!

  • Mnate commented on 28/03/2008 21:45 Report abuse

    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.

  • matt commented on 22/03/2008 21:29 Report abuse

    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.

  • Mike commented on 20/03/2008 12:53 Report abuse

    Actually, I prefer Pageflakes. To each his/her own. But I'm sticking with Pageflakes. :)

  • Oo commented on 15/03/2008 01:43 Report abuse

    Netvibes rules ;)

  • Afkarweb commented on 14/03/2008 05:52 Report abuse

    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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