Netvibes

Start page provider Netvibes launched their latest version, Ginger, into private beta last December. Today they take the wrapper off and have opened it up to the public. They are creating what I am calling a "social start page" by not just letting you determine what's on your start page but your friends can influence the page as well.

Will Netvibes move into widget advertising as a network provider? I could see this type of ad play by Netvibes taking a step past other start pages including Pageflakes, iGoogle, MyYahoo and MyAOL.

Netvibes boasts 120,000 widgets including: Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Slide. Here is an example "universe" which is basically a page that you create and open to the public.

After last year's acquisition post, I thought it would be interesting to look at 5 great acquisition targets for 1st quarter 2008. I do not have financials for any of these companies, so I am working from a base of technology and visibility. For each company I list, I have also listed a possible buyer along with my commentary on why the purchase makes sense. Do you agree or disagree?

AOL

Buyer: Yahoo

Why: Yahoo needs to expand its base of distribution for the Yahoo ad platform. What better way than to acquire the population segment who uses AOL and loves it? AOL users click ads which means a potential cash win for Yahoo sa they could integrate contextually-relevant advertising into AOL, something AOL doesn't do currently. It would also give them access into Hulu thru the AOL Video portal. It might even perk up the employee morale which I read has been quite low this past year.

Zoho

Buyer: IBM

Why: A couple times each week I read about IBM wanting to own the services market. Acquiring Zoho would give IBM a foothold into Web 2.0 and since Zoho targets the small business, would give IBM a chance to sell the small business on even more IBM-based services. It could even help IBM to slowly become a household name again in the Web space, something that they have no real presence in today.

Clicky

Buyer: Webtrends

Why: Webtrends is so completely out of the Web game, it's sad. I remember beta testing the first version of Webtrends in the mid-90s and watched the company never move forward. Clicky is hot, both from the application-side and the buzz-side, and could be a good fit for Webtrends. Most small businesses need simple Web analytics and while Clicky is more robust than just simple, it would give a slow entry into the current Web market for Webtrends. That is of course if they actually want to move forward, something I've wondered for eight years now.

CrazyEgg/ClickTale

Buyer: Omniture

Why: To help Omniture move further into the Web testing market and provide a rounded suite of tools for their clients. Last year I said that CrazyEgg should be acquired by a large creative agency but I've changed my mind and am going with Omniture. CrazyEgg and ClickTale provide the testing and Omniture provides the analytics - I could see some nice A/B type testing with these acquisitions.

Pageflakes/Netvibes

Buyer: Yahoo

Why: Both Pageflakes and Netvibes have good footings into the early adopter, "cool techie" segments. This is a segment which Yahoo lacks on but could be a very influential segment for buzz. Completed correctly, Yahoo could (once again) start to get their search and other products in front of the early adopter, blogger crowd which can be an excellent way for Yahoo to get messages out and have forced use of their technology.

Note: Zoho is a current sponsor of CN.

Netvibes has launched a new start page opportunity for corporations and Web sites to embed Netvibes start page functionality directly into their own Web site. Called Netvibes Universe, basically any of the widgets available on Netvibes are available on these corporate start pages.

“We’re pleased to unveil Netvibes Premium Universe, which was built to meet the demand by media publishers to add the personalization power of Netvibes within their website. Premium Universes bridge the divide between traditional websites and widget-based personalized pages, allowing companies to tailor their brand offering within their own website for each individual user,” said Tariq Krim, CEO and founder of Netvibes. “This is an exciting new product and revenue line for us that paves the way for the rapidly emerging widget economy.”

Marshall wonders if this will be able to gain any traction as the first published customers include what he calls "a spammer and the company that makes those despicable double-underline link ads". Initial customers include Miva, Tagged.com, and two French newspapers.

The truth is that this could be very powerful for corporations who are trying to engage their customers. For some brands, Netvibes Universe can dramatically increase the time a customer spends on site. The other thing this does allow a corporation the ability to create widgets that plug into a startpage framework without having to develop their own.

Also I wonder, could this become a basic Intranet replacement? If you are running a small company, this might be a quick way to get an Intranet up and running. I have to imagine the costs are lower than what goes into creating an internal Intranet.

Costs to setup a Netvibes Universe are not disclosed in the official press release. While Mashall is leaning towards this not working, with the right marketing I think it could be a semi-big win for Netvibes.

Ben Metcalfe sent over a link last week to his latest project called Bubbletop. Bubbletop is a start page from France Telecom/Orange and is similar to Pageflakes, Netvibes, yourminis and Schmedley. My first reaction after using this for a while was, "oh another start page, eh?" But what I have come to learn is that each startpage has it's own flavor and will appeal to a different type of user.

Bubbletop uses a friends system to share the content you find/use on Bubbletop. This is what makes Bubbletop unique. You can "friend" people on Bubbletop and then click the share button and after selecting your friends, they will get a notification of new content from you. What this means is that your friends must be using Bubbletop as well. Pretty groovy and innovative.

Another feature I like about Bubbletop is the ability to bring in my own widgets from other providers. In fact, I could take a widget from yourminis and bring it into Bubbletop. Ben notes, "you can bring widgets from other providers into Bubbletop – no need to build them twice!"

The Bubbletop Foundry is opening soon and will allow developers to collaborate on extending Bubbletop and creating new and interesting content for the start page.

On the business side, Mike notes, "This is an overly-crowded space (and now Google is now promoting their iGoogle product hard as well). But Orange has nearly 90 million mobile customers to try to push to their new online products."

Else, Bubbletop is another start page. I think the social features make it more interesting than 80% of the other start pages out there, but to make this feature really work, my friends need to use the app as well. I would suggest that Ben take a look at Schmedley for some design inspiration as Bubbletop looks more like a developer designed it than a designer.

Come inside for a screenshot >

I reviewed Schmedley back in March and thought it was pretty rad. Even though the application is in Alpha (I think that comes before a Beta) it is very smooth and the "schmidgets" flow so well. The start page space is hot as each of the major players jockey for position. To find out more about Schmedley, I spoke with Dustin Caruso, Schmedley co-founder.

Come inside for the full interview...