Did Netvibes Just Launch the New Corporate Intranet?

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.