Personalized portal (sometimes also called a Webtop), is a customizable page (in this case Ajax-based) with content organized inside boxes - called Flakes in Pageflakes - which can be dragged around, closed, or added as you please. The competition includes Pageflakes, My.Yahoo, Google Homepage, My.Netscape, and Netvibes. (there are many others which could be included in this list, for example the wonderful Goowy, but I’ve chosen these five because, besides being the most popular, they’re all strikingly similar).

Pageflakes has just introduced a new version, called “Flurry” which includes several new and interesting features. I thought this would be a good time for a quick shootout to see where they stand when compared with the competitors.

The Basics

First, lets cover what all of these sites have in common: drag and drop functionality, settings saved for each registered user (registration is free), adding RSS feeds and widgets from a content directory, and adding your own RSS feeds. All except My.Netscape support multiple tabs (called pages at My.Yahoo) for easier content organization. None except My.Yahoo! include ads that you cannot remove.

Options & Customization

As far as options and customization goes, Netvibes still takes the cake. Simply put, they have at least thrice the amount of options of any other competitor. Both Netvibes and Pageflakes let you have 4 columns on a page (I truly wonder why others haven’t done this; personally, I’d like to have the option of having 5 or even more columns. With today’s widescreen monitors, it doesn’t have to be too cluttered), and Netvibes is the only one that lets you freely resize the columns (although Pageflakes does offer several predesigned templates with various column widths). On My.Yahoo you can switch between two and three columns, while on Google Homepage and My.Netscape you’re stuck with 3 columns.

It’s possible to change the visual options to a certain degree on all of these sites, but once again Netvibes is far ahead, enabling users to have different themes for their boxes, background images, colors for individual boxes, etc. You can even have the boxes transparent. Pageflakes and My.Netscape offer a simple color customization, while Google Homepage and especially My.Yahoo are much better with this regard, enabling you to have themes that really change the look and feel of your webtop.

Please note that these customizations do not include additional stuff you can do with Greasemonkey.

Sharing and social Networking

We can skip My.Netscape here because it offers nothing of the sort. Google Homepage offers a simple “Send to a Friend” link on all their gadgets, and same goes for My.Yahoo, although My.Yahoo does offer sharing of entire pages/tabs.

Pageflakes and Netvibes are far ahead. Netvibes has the Netvibes EcoSystem, a public directory of various feeds and modules. You can also share entire tabs or publish them in the EcoSystem. Pafeflakes too offers a public directory, but you also get a personal page to share your flakes, in the form of www.pageflakes.com/username.ashx.

In their latest version, Pageflakes offers a very interesting additional feature: you can now use all the flakes as widgets on a web page. With all these options, Pageflakes comes on top as the most social personalized portal, with Netvibes being very close behind.

Number and quality of modules/widgets

This one is the hardest to judge, because the number of modules for all personalized portals described here is quite huge. My.Netscape and My.Yahoo are definitely falling behind, partly due to them both being very new. As far as others go, I was able to find everything I need on all three sites. Users hooked on Google services will probably enjoy Google Homepage, while others will choose one service over the other based on personal preferences. Although many reviewers tend to focus on the actual modules, they’re not crucial. Someone might like a cool Google Maps module, while someone else would rather have a functional calendar. I can only invite users to try them out themselves and then form an opinion.

This said, Pageflakes and Netvibes have much better organized and user-friendly module directories than the other three services.

Specifics

All of these personalized portals have some specific features and options which none of the competitors have.

My.Netscape lags behind here, as it does very little to distinguish itself from the crowd.

My.Yahoo at first glance stands out with its unique design, but digging deeper it reveals little innovation, except perhaps the annoying unremovable ad in the third column. One thing that they have done well is using the information they’ve previously gathered on their users to automatically create a custom-fit initial page for them.

Google Homepage is specific for its huge number of modules, especially those related to other Google services, lots of available Greasemonkey hacks, and its themes which are much more lively than what other competitors offer. However, it’s obvious that Google Homepage isn’t trying to be the service or the one with most option. They’re doing what it takes, but not much more than that.

Pageflakes also tries hard to make the page specific to each user when they first arrive at it. Besides the ability to use their widgets on web pages, another option stands out as very important: Pageflakes reader. The folks at Pageflakes noticed the popularity of Google Reader and decided to introduce something very similar in their service, an RSS reader, newspaper style. It’s a nice addition that will most probably be replicated by competitors soon.

Netvibes is the most complex of the bunch. It doesn’t go too far in trying to make it easy for everyone, but it definitely does offer the most options. Some are quite subtle, for example, the filtering option that shows only feed items that match a certain keyword; or the ability to add icons to each item on the page. However, this attention to detail is likely to make it a favorite of IT pros and customization freaks.

Conclusion

It is impossible to pick one service from this bunch and say: this one is the best. But, a certain line can be drawn among them. Google Homepage, My.Yahoo and My.Netscape will attract their previous users, but although their offerings are not shabby by any standard, they do lag one step behind between Pageflakes and Netvibes. These two offerings, on the other hand, have to fight for each user, and they both do it well. The differences among them are minute, and one definitely has to try them both out before choosing one over the other.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 4:14 am and is filed under Web, Web 2.0, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.