Happy to take back to Netvibes
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:
- How many blogs do you read everyday?
- Do you, like me, keep coming back to the exact same blogs?
- How many blogs do you discover every week?
- Do you use RSS subscriptions?
- 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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Well, I do pretty agree with you with Netvibes: they are right with constant improvment! However, I would love to have a “global” RSS feed that allows me to have a all-in one RSS feed that groups all RSS from a tab, for example!
For your little poll:
1- 50 or so… thx Netvibes!
2- Yes… and no, let’s say that I do have a little turnover (+5/-5 per week)
3- 20?
4- Yeees
5- Same, and even worse, I would love to find the killer app that would auto-podcast (voice read) my RSS feeds : a soft that would allow me to listen to them on my iPod while going (back) to work!
Hope this helps!
Ju
I follow about 30 feeds, of which about 12 are blogs. Most of my feeds are low-traffic and most of the high-traffic ones are such that I just skim through the headlines and intro texts.
And, yes I seem to read same blogs all the time. Maybe discover a new one a month and get rid of one maybe once in two months…
About videos, I think you’re right, but I see it that I rarely find videos that are worth my time. I still have that Beautiful Mind DVD over my TV reminding me that I should watch it someday… So, it’s not only on internet. On internet, I usually chat with people while watching video on another window…. =(
I actually stopped reading weblogs all-together since december or so. I already wrote about this, but the reason is that I think newssites like BBC have a better layout, which is organised FOR me, instead of me working towards finding the right information. Weblogs also have a tendency to repeat a lot of information. I of course don’t include your weblog into my abstinence
.
I find that looking at Digg, Slashdot, and Techmeme a few times a day, I get the essence of what is hot nowadays anyway.
Regarding multitasking. Maybe, I’m getting older, but I try to minimise the simultaneous activities I do at a time. If I want to listen to a podcast, I take a walk, for video, I take a break, for work, music or nothing.
Oh yeah, I hate rss because it doesn’t give you a choice! No more rss-readers for me.
(I think I’m turning into a cranky old man…)
Thanks for being first to answer guys. I hope there’s more to come or the sample would result slightly biased (same age, European, boys, etc.).
Julien> 1) Okay, but I guess you have many more than 50 feeds registered to Netvibes. That’s interesting.
2) +/- 5 per week is I think above the average. Let’s see.
3) 20 new blogs is 3 new blogs a day (I assume you blog on week-ends too). Not so much after all.
4) Indeed
5) Here’s your killer app: Nabaztag
When speaking about RSS feeders, it’s quite understandable access time (or, put it that way, speed to access information) is a key success factor for Netvibes. If you don’t mind telling us, what’s the one of jobetudiant.net? To my readership: Julien is a very successful entrepreneur who ran for the Business Week Young Entrepreneur of the Year back in 2006.
I’d say the number of partners posting jobs. If your volumes are high, it should keep the competition away. What do you think?
Kari> 1) 30 mostly low-traffic blogs (including 12 blogs) is quite atypical I guess (time and this poll will tell). The blogosphere is a start system that makes heavy bloggers get the bulk of the traffic.
2) Turnover +/-1 in 2 months? That’s a 40x lower rotation than Julien (see above).
5) Allright, I do pretty much the same as you.
Vincent> Turning into a cranky old man? On the multitasking abilities maybe (I believe the more things someone does, the more things someone can do). On you not enjoying RSS, it’s understandable and I’d say you don’t have to worry about this (a technology cannot please everyone).