Netvibes Launches “Coriander Edition”

Netvibes, the leading startup in the personalized homepage space has launched a new version of its personalized homepage, the Coriander Edition. The newly added features are:

• Upgraded Netvibes Feed Reader with multimedia capabilities
• New instant sharing feature that allows users to share feeds, modules and their pages via email or instant messaging
• Netvibes2Go, the beta preview of Netvibes mobile ediiton
• Craigslist and Map Search modules
• Quick start assistants, for newbies.
• Massive internationalization push, with support for 30 new languages, raising the tally to 80 languages supported

The new RSS Reader is dubbed as “Really Sexy Syndication” by Netvibes founder Tariq Krim because it now features games, podcasts, music, photos, videos and live sharing capabilities. Although i will never use a feed reader in a personlized homepage as a module, just like you will never read emails in a personalized homepage. The reason is simple, you can´t keep track of, and easily browse through a large amount of content (mails or feeds alike). However you could still add an email or feed module to your page just to keep real time track of whats going on from a single location.

The guys at Netvibes are really working hard, they just launched Universal Widget API, that promises developers the ability to write a widget once and run it anywhere. However battle in the personalized homepage is getting intense by the day, with Pagflakes, Google, Microsoft and My.Netscape all fighting to carve a market segment for themselves.

I didnt mentioned MyYahoo the market leader above as it already has a huge user base of 50 million. But Netbvibes is growing fast with 10 million (claimed) users, so stay tuned.

37 Signals Launches Highrise

37 Signals have just launched Highrise, their new contact management application. 37 signals is famous for Basecamp (their project management application), RubyOnRails (a web development framework) and extreme usability.

Highrise can track leads, clients and vendors allowing users to stay on top of their customer relationships. Tasks, Notes and calls can have reminders set to them for reminding follow ups. On user sign up he is assigned a unique email address and any items sent to this address becomes tasks for this user, thus making a sort of To Do list for him. Members of a company can share vendors, clients, lead, and co-worker information to get up-to speed with the specific customer. So clearly this will be multiply the utility of the service, if an entire company subscribes.

Rates vary from a Free plan (2 users and 25 contacts) to a $149 per month subscription (Unlimited users, 20 GB storage, 50,000 contacts and other goodies). The service tour is here.

The service is extremely easy to use and simplistic. They have almost become a standard in this regard now, with even a book published on how to skip the irrelevant issues and getting down to the relevant things. Also do check out their blog here.

Google Ads Themes to Personalized Homepage and Launches PayPerAction

Google has just launched its PayPerAction (PPA) product for Adwords. This product would cause serious jitters to the affiliate networks.

By using PayPerPost users will be able to pay only if a certain action is completed by their customers. These actions could include from clicking on a Ad to signing up for their service. The ads will be available to entire Google content network in text, link and text link ad (Have they taken this idea from TextLinkAds ?) formats. The ads would currently only be available to advertisers in the US, but i hope that soon this will roll out globally.

Google has previously denied any foray into affiliate network space, but with this launch they have really entered the club in a big way. Also see Andy Beal´s take on this. The PayPerAction FAQ is here

Another feature release from Google is the ability to have themes for your Personalized Homepage. This is really nice, not something that adds to usability but is great for aesthetics. I for one wont be bored with my startup page.

The themes could change the background, text colors, icons, Google´s logo, button sizes and a lot more. It is actually an XML that contains a list of CSS files. Google says that “the theme will dynamically change to match your time of day, and other weather factors in your area”. All you need to do is set your location.

I really liked this one. The personalized home page becomes even more personalized.