Netvibes Blog

Partnership with Sage brings Netvibes to even more Enterprises

2009-11-04T14:30:15Z

We just announced a milestone partnership with Sage to quickly integrate Netvibes personal dashboard technology into their next ERP X3 release by Q1 2010. Sage is one of the world’s largest business software providers for small and mid-sized businesses, so we’re very excited to be able to work together to bring Netvibes to so many, so soon.

As many of you are well aware, the modern workday is getting faster and more complex. People working at companies of all sizes need to juggle a variety of business apps, industry feeds, real-time client and competitor news–as well as their favorite personal media, social networks, widget and web apps. With our latest Netvibes Wasabi release (you can sign up for our private beta here) we eliminated the back and forth window switching and refreshing many people do between their widget startpages, feed readers and real-time web apps. Now with Sage, we hope to help make the workday easier by bringing enterprise tools and your personal interests together on a single, personalized workplace dashboard.

In short, we want to make your workday a little bit more like Netvibes—quick, easy to manage, and 100% personalized by you. This vision is becoming a reality as we speak: We’ve already engaged in the process of joint development to build these new applications together and starting today, Sage will begin offering Netvibes Premium Dashboards and Netvibes for Enterprise to their customers worldwide.

Furthermore, we believe this partnership will greatly advance the Enterprise 2.0 movement by combining the best business software (Sage ERP X3) with the best Web 2.0 technologies and personal environment (Netvibes) and by bringing the best of these two worlds together as one.

Freddy Mini, CEO

Twitter widget with conversations

2009-11-04T14:30:31Z

As you may have noticed, we just updated the Twitter widget. This time, we went for incremental improvements to make your daily use of twitter more enjoyable.

Here’s a short list of what’s new:

Global redesign
- the header now matches the facebook widget
- tweets are displayed as bubbles
- your tweets are emphasized with by putting your avatar on the opposite side
- the widget is globally more compact
Conversations: you can now see which tweets a reply is referring to. Simply click on “in reply to username” to expand the conversation.
Real names: usernames can now be replaced by the real names of your contacts
Message soft limit: messages are no longer truncated when reaching the 140 characters limit. The counter will just show that your message is too long so you can shorten it by yourself

We also fixed some of the bugs you reported to us and made the widget refresh more often, among other things. Let us know what you think by sending us an e-mail or by sending a message to @netvibes!

The next Netvibes: Wasabi Edition

2009-11-02T15:23:27Z

Back in July, we revealed a few details about our work in progress on a new product and a breakthrough backend for the next Netvibes generation. Our goal was to make feed reading faster and easier.

Since then, not only we’ve been giving final touches to the architecture, but we have also designed a full-fledged feed reader. And today, we are happy to introduce you to our next version: Netvibes Wasabi Edition.

This edition makes Netvibes a truly unique and innovative 2-in-1 product offering both the widget view Netvibes pioneered and a brand new Smart Reader to improve the way your read feeds:

by streamlining feeds while keeping widgets only one click away
by offering faster updates
by showing articles as pictures in a beautiful mosaic view

As mentionned above, this new Netvibes will be powered by new technologies. After comprehensive benchmarks, our technical team decided to step away from RDMS (Relational Database Management Systems) and picked Tokyo Tyrant (along with Tokyo Cabinet) as the main database for the feeds.

We might dive into the details later, but in a nutshell, it allows us to go much faster than traditional databases while using only a fraction of the disk space.

Like with any major release, we’re taking extra caution, hence this βeta period where users will upgrade progressively to Netvibes Wasabi Edition.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

Sign up now to get your own βeta invitation
Soon after, we will send out invite codes so you can have access to the new Smart Reader. We will send the codes progressively as we monitor the behavior of the new architecture.
During the βeta period, we will collect feedbacks and regularly update Netvibes Wasabi Edition.
When we’ll be satisfied with the new architecture and the Smart Reader, all Netvibes users will automatically be upgraded to Wasabi.

Before you apply for an invitation code, you need to know that once you’re upgraded to Netvibes Wasabi Edition, there’s no way back. Obviously, we are taking extra care of your data, but consider yourself warned.

Ready? Simply head toward http://wasabi.netvibes.com/ and follow the instructions.

Netvibes Push Publishing and the Future of Web Personalization

2009-10-14T16:15:03Z

Two years ago, we introduced the first generation of our Publishing Platform with our Premium Universes, allowing our partners to publish a fully personalized page, built on Netvibes technology, integrated within their web site and accessible on their domain.

Today, with the release of the Push Publishing, I’m pleased to announce our second generation, named Premium Dashboard, uniquely orchestrating live publisher updates and complete user freedom.

As many of you know, our original vision of Netvibes has and always will be about advancing the movement to personalize the entire Web.

There are two ways of doing this: The first has been with Netvibes.com, which represents a bottom up, grassroots approach, giving everyone the opportunity to create, personalize and publish their own daily digital lives. The second way is with Netvibes Premium Dashboards, which represents a top down approach to personalize the Web, by giving publishers the tools to build user personalizable sites.

Just imagine if every website, every media portal, every brand or product page on the Web was 100% user personalizable. If we are truly committed to personalizing the Web, we feel we have to help both consumers and publishers with the right tools to make this possible.

But as we rapidly move towards the real-time Web, one question many people have had is can push publishing coexist with user personalization? Although publishers want to give and users want to receive live updates, at the same time, users don’t want publishers to alter their personal environment without permission. Look no further than the recent controversy over major UI changes with some of the web’s most popular sites. We believe websites and webapps should function more like real desktop apps, like in Windows, Mac OS X or Firefox where users get to decide which updates to accept.

That’s why for Premium Dashboards we developed Push Publishing Tools that make it easy for any publisher to deliver new updates, themes, widgets and content directly to users–while giving users the power to pick and choose which updates they want to accept. By doing so, we hope to empower both users and publishers alike to work together in harmony as we enter the real-time AND personalized Web.

As always, we could never have accomplished this without the feedback and support of our users and the many agencies and publishers we work with. Thank you and we look forward to hearing what you think about the new Netvibes Premium Dashboards.

Freddy Mini, CEO

Get Organized The Easy Way: Just Add a Calendar Widget

2009-09-14T11:55:09Z

Whether you use iCal or Google, get your schedule at-a-glance with a new calendar widget

The end of summer means back to school and back to work, but don’t worry, Netvibes can help keep you on schedule even while you’re browsing your favorite feeds with a new calendar widget.

How to Install an iCal Calendar Widget

Publish your iCal calendar via MobileMe or by uploading it to your own web server. Simply select “Publish” from the Calendar menu. Make note of the published URL.
Add the iCal Calendar Widget to your Netvibes page
Go to your new Calendar Widget and click Edit. Enter the URL of your published iCal calendar.

How to Install a Google Calendar Widget

Visit your Google Calendar. On the calendar list on the left-hand side, click the down-arrow button next to your calendar and select Calendar Settings. Then, in the Calendar Address section that appears, click “HTML” to get the URL for your calendar.
Add the Google Calendar Widget to your Netvibes page
Go to your new Google Calendar Widget and click Edit. Enter the URL of your Google calendar.

Want to get even more organized? Want a to-do list? How about a Flickr calendar widget? Check out all of the most popular calendar widgets on the Netvibes Ecosystem here: http://eco.netvibes.com/search?q=calendar&browse=popular&type=all&submit=Apply

10 useful tips for a better Public Page

2009-09-09T15:42:58Z

Public Pages are an easy way to create and publish a website. But with more than 300,000 existing Public Pages, standing out is becoming difficult. Here are 10 useful tips that will help you create a Public Page with a better design and higher traffic!

1 – Select a good Public Page name

The first step is to get a Public Page with a good username. When you activate your Public Page, your username (which is used for the page URL) should be:

short : short names are usually easier to remember.
descriptive: if your Public Page is about cooking, it should contain the word “cooking”. However, according to the Terms of Service, your username can not be a generic name. If your username is composed of several words, use dashes “-” to separate them: they will make the address more legible and search engine friendly.
creative: “amelie-recipes” is certainly better than “amelie23″

2 – Pick the best content from the Ecosystem and the Web

Once your Public Page is created, you need to fill it with interesting content. You may only put widgets that are related to your topic. Those widgets can come from:

the Netvibes Ecosystem, the widget directory. There are 180,000+ widget in the directory, sorted in 9 categories. You can browse them by popularity, freshness or search them by keywords. The directory can be quickly accessed by clicking on Add content (top left of the screen).
news websites. You can add any RSS feed to your public page. Select feeds that make sense when put together. If your Public Page is about gadgets, you may add Engadget, Gizmodo and Crunchgear feeds, one next to the other.
all over the Web. With the HTML widget (Add Content > Essential widgets), you can embed any Flash widget or video from Youtube and other popular video websites. Simply get the Embed code from these websites, and paste it into the HTML widget.

3 – Plan your Public Page offline before publishing

With the recent addition of Multiple Personalized Pages, you can now have more than one private page. You can use one of them to build a draft version of your Public Page. When you’re satisfied with the content, go the the Page management section and drag’n'drop the tabs from this private page to your Public Page.

4 – Fill your Public Page description, keywords and upload an avatar

In order to make your Public Page searchable, you should write a good description and tag your Public Page with keywords. To do so, open your Profile (top right of the screen) and click on Edit my profile. Now, in the Profile section, enter a short text to describe your Public Page and a few keywords. These pieces of information will then be visible by search engines such as Google or Bing.

Also think about uploading an attractive avatar. It will make your Public Page easily recognizable among all the anonymous profile pictures.

5 – Promote your Public Page

Friends and family will be your first fans. Shows them your Page so they can spread the word.

If they are already Netvibes Users, you can find them with the Find friends feature located in the Contacts panel (top right of the screen). This functionnality will let you search in your address book people who already have a Public Page and add them as friends on Netvibes. They will get a notification e-mail and will probably go visit your Public Page.

If your friends are not Netvibes Users yet, you can invite them with the Invite friends feature located in the same panel.

You can also promote your Public Page outside Netvibes. Use Facebook, Twitter or any other social media to get new visitors!

6 – Share links regularly

Now that you have dozens of followers, you need to keep them posted with fresh content. The easiest way to share interesting stuff with them is to use the ad-hoc sharing feature. This feature lets you post links to your Activities, a stream that all your friends can see. You can share links to hot articles, cool widgets and even entire tabs full of great content.

Post new links at a regular pace and your followers will keep following you!

7 – Interact with your visitors

Another way to interact with your visitors is to start a conversation. With the Wall widget (Add Content > Essential widgets), your visitors can leave a message on your Public Page with text and emoticons.

8 – Design your own theme

Content is key, but design is just as important. To build a remarkable Public Page, you need it to look unique with a custom theme. Creating your own theme is fairly easy with the Theme Designer. All you have to do, is pick a few colors and create a banner. The cool thing is that everything is hosted for free by Netvibes.

To learn more about theme design, read our previous post: Design and share your own themes.

9 – Hide tabs and widget borders

On public pages, you can make borders fade away so your page looks slicker.

For widgets, select the transparent color and they will blend into the background. For tabs, open the Settings window and check Hide public page tabs. This last option is especially handy when you only have one tab on your Public Page.

Learn more about hiding tabs and widget borders in our previous post: What’s up at Netvibes?

10 – Go further with our business solutions

In some cases, Public Pages are just not enough. If you want to build an Intranet, or a Page that others can personalize, you may be interested in our business solutions. To discover how much further you can go with Netvibes, simply head to business.netvibes.com.

Conclusion

With these 10 useful tips, you’re now ready to build a great Public Page. If you have more tips to share or simply like this article, retweet it or leave a us comment!

Weather Widgets for Friends, Family and…Fashion?

2009-09-09T12:34:10Z

Free weather widgets let you share your status and even figure out what to wear

Nearly everyone on Netvibes knows about our Weather Widget (it’s been installed nearly 30M times), but did you know it can do more than just tell you about the weather in your city?

Weather Widget Dashboard

You can install multiple Weather Widgets on a separate tab to create a full weather dashboard, so you can see the weather of all your friends and family around the world. (Hey Uncle Joe, I hear it’s raining in Oslo.)

Share Your Weather

Weather Widgets can also be installed on your public Netvibes page so your friends can see what it’s like where you’re living.

Also, there are many other cool, free weather widgets that do way more than just tell you the weather. Some even discuss how weather affects our society or suggest what we should wear before heading outside. Here are a few worth checking out:

StyleCaster Daily Looks

Need some ideas on what to wear today? StyleCaster’s weather widget tells you the temperature and what outfit to wear.

Get this widget here: http://eco.netvibes.com/widgets/309651/stylecaster-daily-looks

Weather Brains Podcast

A weekly podcast for people that love weather. They discuss the science behind weather events, how it affects how we live and the latest weather technology.

Get this widget here: http://eco.netvibes.com/widgets/5172/weather-brains

aarWorld 3D Globe

An interactive, 3D globe. This weather widget lets you spin a virtual globe and see the time and weather anywhere in the world.

Get this widget here: http://eco.netvibes.com/widgets/205115/aarworld-3d-globe

This week’s photography, travel & news widgets to discover !

2009-09-04T16:10:30Z

Art & Travel - If you like photography, here’s an interesting photo gallery, to discover new pics, right from your page : the Art limited widget. It’s a community of photographers wanting to share their best pics, with everyday new creative, personal and high quality work to discover. Then have a look at Tweetphoto’s best pics, it’s an instant photo sharing platform! It’s never too late to book holidays!! Check out the Booking widget, you’ll surely find some interresting travel promotions, so install it quickly!

News – Arsenal supporters now have a dedicated widget to follow their favourite football team! On Arsenal news follow the team’s latest news, check out it’s scores and discover more about the players from behing the scene. Treehugger will help you to find some green ideas to lead a more eco-friendly life! Finally on Yougamers read about gaming news, game and consoles reviews.

Dashboard Widgets: Stick Your Favorites on Your Desktop

2009-09-01T19:28:29Z

Widgets for your dashboard are a great way to see your favorites at a glance

Ever wish you could quickly check on your favorites feeds and widgets from your desktop without opening your browser? Have a certain Netvibes widget that you wish you could use as a dashboard widget instead? Good news: you can. It’s easy to take any universal widget from Netvibes and add it to your OS X Dashboard or Windows Vista Sidebar as a dashboard widget in just a few clicks.

First, go to the Netvibes Ecosystem and search for the widget, blog, feed or application you’re looking for. Then click the “Add to My Desktop” button (or the Apple or Vista icon) to download a widget for your dashboard.

Your dashboard widget will download automatically. Double-click the widget to automatically install it on your desktop. Voila! You’re done.

(Remember: you can edit the settings of your new dashboard widget, just like any Netvibes widget. Simply mouse-over the widget and an edit icon will appear that you can click to change your settings.)

This is also a great way to install your favorite Netvibes widgets for your friends and family on their computer. So the next time your Aunt Sally asks to see your pictures, try installing a Flickr dashboard widget of your photo stream on her computer. Might just do the trick.

August’s top widgets !

2009-08-28T16:07:14Z

News

Business & Finance

Sport

Tv, movies & music

Tools & technology

Fun & games

Lifestyle

Shopping

Travel