My.Netscape reviewed: nothing to see here, move along
I wrote yesterday about the announced relaunch of Netscape’s personalized portal, My.Netscape. Since the personalized/modular ajaxy portal space is quite crowded (Netvibes, Pageflakes, Google Homepage, YourMinis, Goowy, etc), it was hard to imagine that Netscape will come up with something revolutionary here. And that’s exactly how it turned out.
First of all, visually it’s more of the same, and although my taste might not be the same as yours, I find it quite unattractive. Netvibes, with its pretty boxes, themes and customizable background, is miles ahead here, and so are some other competitors, for example PageFlakes and YourMinis.
Functionality? Again, more of the same. It does cover the basics: RSS based modules, drag-and-drop functionality, simple control center for adding content, etc. But it offers absolutely zero innovation. Actually, this is so obvious that I barely have anything to report here that hasn’t been done and overdone before. It is as if some head honcho over at Netscape had shown Netvibes to a coder and said: See that? I want that. You have two weeks. For completeness’ sake, here’s a list of customizable features: the color of the heading on a module, and number of items in an RSS feed. That’s it. And it’s not enough. As far as good sides go, I can name one: if you’re a Netscape user, you don’t have to register again.
The only “noteworthy” feature is the ability to rearrange the content with these arrows; but who will use it when drag and drop is so much better?
So, why would you use My.Netscape, unless you’re already a user (and not a demanding one, might I add) and you want to use your old profile? That’s a good question, and I have no answer. It’s, at best, just as good as the competition, but Netscape is no Google or Yahoo, which have millions of users who will use their service only because it’s convenient. Netscape has to fight for every single user, and currently they’re not trying hard enough.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Dude! This is your fourth post today, where do you get the time from and what do you do to find interesting things to post about each time? I strugle for 1 post a day sometimes. Keep up the good blogging.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Totally agree. So sick of copycats. And this one sickens me even more because it comes from a known and once-loved internet company. What is their ambitions with this product, play catch-up with the market? Let’s see how that turns out.
As always, the TechCrunch’s DeadPoll is always open for new applicants.
March 6th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
@Bull3t: I guess it comes with experience (;. If you make 1 good blog post per day, that’s more than enough; don’t worry about quantity.
@Al: I can’t say I’m “sickened” by it, but I am definitely unimpressed.
March 7th, 2007 at 4:04 am
I also saw that Google added the tab functionality - I hate the fact that it has to reload a page to take effect, one reload and 0.8 seconds too many.
As for Netscape-Meh! You’re right move along everybody.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
[…] The basic idea of the site is unchanged: it is still a page with customizable modules containing various information: RSS feeds, weather info, cooking recipes and the like. The competition is strong in this field and consists - among others - of Netvibes, Pageflakes, Google Homepage and recently My.Netscape. However, unlike Netscape’s bland offering, though, Yahoo! has really improved the site, adding several new features. […]
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