Netvibes Releases Dashboard Engine

(Page 1 of 3 )

Netvibes faced a quandary; the service they offered five years ago could now be found in many other places. Clearly, they needed to come up with another, more compelling service for web surfers. This new service, which should be a boon to anyone doing topic-focused research (from hobbyists to scientists), went live just a few months ago. Let's take a closer look.

In 2005 Netvibes was launched to great success, as its aim to provide users with a custom home page service where they could collect their favorite online content and access it all from any Web browser was a very original idea at the time. Five years later, of course, similar services exist and though Netvibes hasn't been left behind, the Paris and San Francisco-based company was in need of something to make their product new and refreshing.

This past April, they did just that. The duo behind the company launched a Dashboard Engine to help its users track the web, enabling them to create a single place where everything available on the web about a respective topic can be viewed at once from their dashboard. The Dashboard Engine, which is more of a tool than anything else, features a search box where users can type in a topic, person, or event and before they know it, they'll be presented with the latest and greatest information about it from across the web. Some of the results come from Yahoo Search, Flickr, and YouTube, just to name a few.

Let's learn more about Netvibes' new Dashboard Engine, its features, and how it helps businesses. Let's get started:

The First of Its Kind

According to the creators of Netvibes, their number one goal with the new dashboard engine was to help users track the "real-time Web," which seems to be the major goal of many developers these days, but we'll discuss that major, emerging trend in just a little while. What's perhaps most impressive about the engine is that it's being heralded as the first of its kind in the world.

One of the most appealing aspects of the Dashboard Engine is that users can go back to it without having to repeatedly search or look up the latest updates on a specific topic since their previous visit to Netvibes. They can also add new content to the Dashboard Engine, delete items they no longer want updates on, and arrange their topics, making it easier to sift through their content.

Users will find the Dashboard Engine's ability to find any information on any topic a very welcome experience, not to mention the fact that it provides the latest and most up-to-date information as well. Early users have reported that the Dashboard Engine is a little slow to load at times, but it's not too much of a nuisance, and its built-in tool that makes it easy to share your favorite content via e-mail or through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook also make up for any slight delay users may experience.

Next: Using Netvibes' New Dashboard Engine >>
 

More Software Articles
More By Joe Eitel

blog comments powered by Disqus