Top 12 web-based Startpages Compared. The winner is…

Thanks for the review. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions about Pageflakes. We are always loking for user feedback to improve the service.

Cheers
Ole

Great review…thanks for your support. One thing I wanted to add is that at yourminis we have a greater focus on not only the personalized start pages but the community around those pages.

We give users a place to not only share and view others content but to also have conversations around that content, whether its tabs, widgets, or even the people themselves. Our goal is to create a more collaborative environment around the start pages as well as the widgets that make up the start pages.

In addition we are launching desktop support for our widgets including Mac, Windows and Linux on the Adobe Apollo platform. You will be able to configure and grab any of the widgets that you see in our community or anywhere on the web and have it live on your desktop.

Following that we will also have the ability for your widgets to run on mobile devices using Flash 7.

Thanks again for your support! Any additional feedback would be great as we are always trying to improve.

How about http://www.MyOwnSite.us ?

This is a fantastic article. I often bounce around between Google and Yahoo, but am never quite satisfied with either. I’ll have to spend a little time trying out the different options you’ve tested to see if something is better.

Thanks,

John

@bill
I checked myownsite, thanks for the tip. It’s more like a feedreader rather than a startpage. If there would be a module for notepad or todo lists, I would definitely add it here as well. I am planning to do similar review for web-based feedreaders I’ll include it then.

@John
if you’ll have a minute drop me a line mentioning the one you’ll decide to stick with.

Adding static modules (ToDo lists, etc.) is on the ToDo list seen here - http://www.myownsite.us/history/history.txt so hopefully it won’t be too long before those are implemented.

Thanks for checking it out.

How can you honestly give Netvibes a “3″ on “Design” and being “User-Friendly”? It has a cluttered user interface with a lot of confusing controls. Sites like yourminis and pageflakes have much better usability and are definitely more aesthetically pleasing. The Netvibes interface is so “Windows 98″. I am starting to grow tired of Netvibes being put on such a high pedestal.

Netvibes copied the **** out of pageflakes, but actually it might getting better now… they are French!!!

Vive la France

You get funding you get “3″
You remain independent you get “Orerlooked”

@John
when I first tried netvibes I got the same feeling however, after some what initially seemed as cluttered interface became efficient use of screen space. Give it a try.

There’s a new start-page out there that I’m hot on right now. If you want to see a fresh and interesting new contender in this space, check out http://www.schmedley.com

i would be curious what you thought of http://www.webjam.com I use netvibes myself (regardless of its slow load time, especially when adding modules and moving between tabs). My first thought is that Webjam seems very promising, but complicated to use and personalize/customize.

@paul
just finished checking out webjam. By looking at the available modules, I think it looks more like a ‘personal homepage’ rather than a ’startpage’. I also find it little bit confusing, because there is no clear description stating the purpose of the website. What is it? Why I should use it? and so on

what would consitute a personal homepage? If Webjam has modules and feed management, just like netvibes etc, wouldn’t it fall in the same category as those sites?

plus webjam also allows adjusting the size and dimensions of modules, a la ProtoPage. ProtoPage is neat, but too much going on, thus making it look disorganized, especially for something that is supposed to assist with organizing

Also, how come you did not review yourmini’s sister site goowy.com ? It does have minis per se, granted not as prevelant as netvibes, pageflakes etc

@paul:
1. [what would consitute a personal homepage?...]
That’s a very good point. I knew it may come up but was kinda hoping you would let it pass. :-). It’s hard to define clear distinction between these 2 concepts and in many cases they do overlap. After I looked at webjam for the second time and spend some time on it, I realised it I was wrong about it. I actually liked it and even thinking about putting it here. It has powerful interface customization options, rich variety of modules, good speed, different privacy levels on modules and some more. Although I think it can do a better job at presenting itself. It has lots more features when compared to other startpages, hence it needs stronger navigational tips. It needs design that will guide non-experienced web-user.
2. [how come you did not review yourmini’s sister site goowy.com ?]. Ooops, I think I might have mistakenly excluded it because of the homepage link to yourminis. I am checking on it now….
P.S. Thanks for the tips

Hi,
I found a site which doesn’t do any of the customizable stuff, nor does it show any widgets, but if you just want to have a startpage as a tool to quickly browse to another site you should check this out.
http://go.nzal.es.

I checked it out, however it seems to have bugs. Tried to add couple of URLs but it didn’t work. Any thoughts?

You are right, it had errors, but they seem fixed now…

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