Schmedley

Schmedley is a start page that launched in alpha mode about 17 months ago. Next week they are relaunching with an updated start page service. Unlike some of the other start pages, Schmedley is built outside of Flash. Check out my interview with founder Dustin Caruso.

If you don't want to wait a week, click here for immediate access. Interesting note...Schmedley ran some coding sessions this summer in the IndyHall coworking spot in Philadelphia.

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...

Alrighty... so yet another *&%T#*()%) start page, My.Netscape, launched today. And it ain't there. It so ain't there. First, it looks like a Vignette install... appears to have no more features than any 1998 start page. I could not find any way to add my own content, all of the other players have this ability. There is an error when you click signup when you are logged in (see video) which is plausible since they are in beta (beta protects you like a superman cape!).

Mr. Arrington says, "Netscape’s user base is not exactly cutting edge, and AOL is clearly taking good ideas from new startups and seeing if their users will consume them."

Come inside for more blogo' commentary, my video, and my final comment»

I have been checking out a pretty new start page offering from Schmedley. So far, my favorite has been yourminis in this space. While yourminis is a completely flash-based environment, Schmedley is a Javascript-based environment. I have to give it to Schmedley as this absolutely looks like Flash. It feels so mac-based it's scary!

I like the site a lot. You can tell they put a lot of time into the widgets (called Schmidgets) and it is easy to see how they monetize the site. They have some ads along the right plus affiliates on Amazon and the travel partners.

The Schmidgets I like the best are the search and the travel. The search shows results from the big engines at one time and the travel shows results from Expedia, Howire, etc.

Come inside for a video review, screenshots and more discussion.