I’m now using RSS feeder Netvibes..again. Although I really enjoyed the simplicity and Ajax interface of Netvibes, I came to a point, about a couple months ago, where I had to stop reading RSS flows. As a matter of fact:

• I had only time to read 5 to 10 blog posts a day (going back to the same 5 to 7 blogs everyday and leaving between 1 and 5 comments).
• The Netvibes platform was having a hard time downloading the thousand syndicated links I had aggregated. It used to take several minutes.

So, I sort of took some time in the last 2 days to clean my mess (delete unactive and uninteresting blogs, from thousands to about a hundred), and actually realized that, in just 2 months, Netvibes had made tremendous progress in terms of speed (even with several hundred RSS flow subscriptions) & features available (video) – having remained easy to use and friendly. It seems to me that Netvibes makes sure to release new, faster, more reliable versions of its online software on a regular basis.

Frankly, I’m impressed with Netvibes. Many successful Internet companies don’t bother to improve their website once on the highway to success. Look at eBay: apart from raised commissions, I haven’t noticed the slightest user experience (design, new features, etc.) improvement in the last 6 months or so. Ensuring you’re using and making your users take advantage of cutting-edge technologies & design is in my opinion the seal of the fittest. For instance, take a Amazon & Google : the former still heavily invests in its top tier CRM system providing relevant recommendations, the latter has top-notch software development teams improve hundreds of software Beta versions on an on-going basis. Same business as far as Netvibes is concerned: the guys at Netvibes have chosen to build technological entry barriers on their very crowded market. I see this strategy as winning in the long run.

As you may have anticipated, I’m sticking with Netvibes, unless you have something really better (better and getting better, not better and unactive) to recommend. By the way, please take 20 secs and answer this poll:

1. How many blogs do you read everyday?
2. Do you, like me, keep coming back to the exact same blogs?
3. How many blogs do you discover every week?
4. Do you use RSS subscriptions?
5. Do you, like me, find it hard to videos longer than 2:30min and spend more than 10 minutes a day watching videos? Here’s my point: when listening to something, you can answer your e-mails, tidy up your desk, update your to-do list, etc. Watching videos, I sometimes have the feeling that I’m wasting my time.

Thank you in advance for your contribution. I guess there’s room for a funny discussion in the comment section.

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