The RSS aggregators are fighting over me!
1705 days ago
Well no, they aren’t really fighting over me, I guess they are fighting over the world, but still they are making it very hard for me to organize me life. But let me start at the beginning.
After starting with iGoogle, I moved on to Netvibes and loved it. Then one day after reading a post by Novak I tried pageflakes… and loved it even more. I switched… well… half switched… and have been milling around in the middle ever since.
Here are a few of the reasons I can’t decide between the two of them (in the form of what I love/hate about one which automatically implies the opposite for the other:
- I love the “change layout” option of Pageflakes
- I love the little falling snowflakes in Pageflakes!
- I love that you can just embed a Javascript version of a Pageflakes “flake”
- I love the huge amount of options that Pageflakes gives for displaying a feed
- I hate how I can’t read my hotmail in Netvibes
- I love the way you add modules/widgets in Pageflakes
- I love that you can share a single page in pageflakes
- I love/hate Pageflake’s RSS reader mode
- I love that Netvibes lets you change the feed location within the module
- I love that you will be able to keep and share an entire alternate universe in Netvibes
- I love the greater range of OPM modules in Netvibes, like Rugby World Cup 2007 and Facebook
- I hate the way you add basic feeds in Pageflakes
- I hate how the default in Pageflakes is “summery view” and “read in original site”
- I hate how Pageflakes takes longer to load
- I love the fact that clicking on the title of a feed takes you to that site
Great! My list ends up being completely even! What do I do?
For now I think I’ll switch back to Netvibes (seeing that the Rugby world cup is my priority)… but I’m still up in the air and waiting for a truly compelling argument one way or the other. I long for the day when I can just choose one and just forget completely about the other!
Update:
I just figured out how to share a whole page in Netvibes. Now Netvibes is really winning!
re: hotmail- you mean you cannot read hotmail email within netvibes or check for new mail at all via netvibes? because there is a netvibes module that allows you to read snippets of various webmail, including hotmail
Paul, I meant that the email Module in Netvibes didn’t used to work for “Windows Live Hotmail”, although it did work for regular hotmail.
However, I just tried it again and Netvibes has now made it so that I can add my “Live Hotmail” account. More points for Netvibes!
Solid blog. I got a lot of great info. I’ve been following this technology for awhile. It’s intriguing how it keeps shifting, yet some of the core elements remain the same. Have you seen much change since Google made their latest acquisition in the area?
Hey Bert,
I’ve kinda moved away from the world of aggregators. I find they provide too much content. At the moment, my main source of information is Google Reader. I do still use iGoogle, but I use it in conjunction with Google Tasks and Calendar to help me keep track of projects etc.