Comments on: Ex-Yahoo Exec now Pageflakes CEO

By: Clock Ticking On Pageflakes? - GigaOM

Clock Ticking On Pageflakes? - GigaOM — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:30:10 +0000

[...] CEO Dan Cohen, formerly of Yahoo denied that the company was running out of cash. He invited me to a fancy lunch and offered to pay [...]

By: GigaOM NetVibes, now with one less CEO «

GigaOM NetVibes, now with one less CEO « — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:10:04 +0000

[...] and other personalized page start-ups are entering a tenuous phase, where they face not only increased competition from each other, but also face increasingly energized large companies, that are preparing their one [...]

By: Omar Al Zabir

Omar Al Zabir — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:41:49 +0000

Pageflakes is the number one in the world. Netvibes suck, Live.com suck, google suck. pageflakes is the best.

By: NewTeeVee » Where to Find Fresh Video: Pageflakes

NewTeeVee » Where to Find Fresh Video: Pageflakes — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 08:19:24 +0000

[...] has funding from Benchmark Capital and recently brought on the former head of My Yahoo, Dan Cohen, as its CEO. Share/E-mail Sphere Topic: Software, Online [...]

By: Vincent Garry

Vincent Garry — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:01:09 +0000

It’s way too early to declare a winner in this market. I bet most average users have never heard of neither Netvibes nor Pageflakes – yet. I think they both have a bright future. If you try Pageflakes and compare it with, say, Google’s homepage you’ll know what I mean!

By: BlogReader

BlogReader — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:52:29 +0000

Why would anyone leave Google for Yahoo? I give this guy 6 months before he leaves or is kicked out.

By: Vincent Abry

Vincent Abry — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:39:02 +0000

Pageflakes is a very good startpage but Netvibes is definitely the winner of personalized homepages This company should be bought soon I guess..

By: Jeremy Goodrich

Jeremy Goodrich — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:46:15 +0000

There are so many Yahoo's that have left to become director, VP, SVP, or C level officers at other companies, it's a might long list if you put it all together. I left Yahoo in 2006 to start a consulting practice, and while I love many people that I used to work with there, it seems at least 50% or more of the real talent I knew has moved on.

I wish David well with PageFlakes - that data issue re: the inflation of their numbers (either intentional or not) probably got them a good amount of intention…as they say, any PR is good PR :)

Still, the model for these things isn't there (imho) because it presupposes that you can't get or don't want a certain service as your start page.

By: Gopi

Gopi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:01:12 +0000

FYI, less than 20% of my.yahoo.com users actually personalize the page. I highly doubt that these AJAX startpages will ever adopted by the mainstream public!.

By: Robert Yeager

Robert Yeager — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:23:29 +0000

Protopage is my start page of choice. Protopage allows collapsed windows to be opened with an efficient mouse over on the title bar, while the last time I tried Netvibes and Pageflakes they required clicks to toggle a window's collapsed state.

Actually, I think there is a large business opportunity…start pages are tremendous productivity tools.

By combining tabs, RSS readers, widgets, and web clippings, I can't imagine having to live without Protopage. It is much better than browser tabs alone, b/c my entire "desktop" is virtual and accessible from anywhere.

I use my Protopage desktop far more than my Windows desktop…a true sign of the irrelevance of a desktop operating system nowadays.

I believe start pages have a bright future ahead.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:25:50 +0000

@Scott: You may be right, but that points squarely at the short-sightedness of the approach PageFlakes took. Tariq knew that in order to get NetVibes in front of as many people as possible, he needed to appeal to the early adopters and zealots first. Those people helped do his bidding for him. And a lot of those people are Mac people. PageFlakes, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care, nor do they care about knowingly borking RSS statistics for months on end. I’ve designed plenty of web sites and applications in my life, from my personal blog to the largest sports web site in the world, ESPN, and never once have I had any problems supporting all major browsers. It’s a question of belief rather than skill.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:08:04 +0000

I’ve used both, and Netvibes has a much cleaner and easier to use interface than Page Flakes.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:43:38 +0000

I have to confess, the only reason I gave this article any attention is because when it showed up in my Google Reader I just couldn’t stop looking at the gorgeous blonde in the screenshot! Have mercy on me this early in the morning, please!

By: Tim Losavio

Tim Losavio — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:40:30 +0000

@Vinodh: The difference is that back in the Octopus days there was no AJAX, no RSS, not thousands of APIs, less long-tail content. In other words, many of the services which these sites aggregate today didn't exist at that time, plus the UI was not compelling.

@Om: Pageflakes actually didn't have such an early start. They started about half a year or so later than Netvibes. Seems like they did a pretty good job of catching up. In any case, I think Pageflakes clearly has the best product although Netvibes is nice too.

By: Vinodh

Vinodh — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:23:11 +0000

This is a concept that people just won’t stop trying. Reminds me of a Dot com era service called Octopus.

By: gary price

gary price — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:09:01 +0000

Om, Just the other day we posted an overview article on ResourceShelf taking a look at what PageFlakes

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/01/24/a-quick-intro-and-overview-of-personalized-web-page-service-pageflakes/