A start-up website takes on the giants

A French start-up called Netvibes is trying to take on the likes of Yahoo and Google by offering internet users a better way to organise news, information and other web-based services. The site, at www.netvibes.com, is being billed as easier to use than RSS feeds and more flexible than MyYahoo or Google’s home page. Recently infused with EUR 12m of venture capital, the community-built site encourages users to tinker with information from different sources to create their own personal home page, tracking numerous sites at a single glance. The elements combined on a page could include news headlines, an eBay auction or e-mail account, or functions like currency converters or language translators borrowed from different websites. To Tariq Krim, founder of Netvibes, the site is part of a trend toward empowering users to adapt the internet to their needs. In addition to writing modules with the simple programming tools provided by Netvibes, users have been enlisted to help translate much of the site’s content. (International Herald Tribune,August 24, 2006)

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