Pageflakes 2.0 To Launch

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1. Edwin Khodabakchian
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 8:34 pm

   Michael,
   It is interesting that this is published the same day Google announces 1200 widgets for their personalized homepage. In your opinion what makes a PageFlakes or a Netvibes better then a Google or Yahoo homepage?
   Thanks,
   Edwin

2. jeff
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 9:09 pm

   I’m interested too in what you’d have to say in response to Edwin. I am a die hard Netvibes user, but do like the idea of a shareable or publishable page.

3. Faisal
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 9:21 pm

   Michael,

   Do you really believe the Netvibes’s 5 millions story?

4. Michael Arrington
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 9:30 pm

   I believe that 5 million people have “created a home page” since a home page is autocreated whenever someone visits the site. This means that at least 5 million people have visited the site. But no matter how you look at it, it’s a raging success. Some heavy users are literally on it all day. That doesn’t generate page views since it’s Ajax, but it certainly is valuable.

5. Klim
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 9:35 pm

   Personally, I like Pageflake’s Flickr Interestingness panel (Netvibes’s sucks) and Youtube panel (the videos play right on the page, maybe Netvibes has this also, but since it’s not in their default list I did no searching), as well as the ability to choose how many columns you want the page to have (Netvibes used to have it but I can’t find it anymore, and their support appears non-existant in this matter).

   Netvibes is pretty much all hype. Not that I have anything against it, but it’s the same as all of them really (it’s just a little prettier that’s all). Combine Pageflakes with Protopage, and Netvibes is out of the game.

6. Jawad Shuaib
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 pm

   Not releasing numbers to the mass media is fine as long as the company isn’t aiming for a buy out by a larger corporation. As Machiavelli put it.

   “No enterprise is likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”

   This doesn’t go for all the startups, but certainly enlightens us with Pageflakes approach.

7. Drama 2.0
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 9:53 pm

   “I believe that 5 million people have ‘created a home page’ since a home page is autocreated whenever someone visits the site. This means that at least 5 million people have visited the site. But no matter how you look at it, it’s a raging success.”

   Wow. I know people with sites that have had more than 5 million users by that measurement. Where’s their $15 million?

   “are building a large and valuable user base and both have enough funding for the short and medium term. That’s good, because neither have generated any revenue yet.”

   How do you define a “valuable user base”? I would think that value is created through monetization. If they’re claiming millions of users but haven’t generated any revenue, how can you call the user base valuable? At best, it would be more appropriate to describe it as a “potentially valuable user base.” Even with a few hundred thousand users you’d expect they’d try implementing some sort of monetization strategy. Why the delay? $15 million seems ridiculous for a souped up homepage service that hasn’t proven that they can generate revenues to justify that type of valuation.

8. Startups.in/India
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 10:12 pm

   Glad to see pageflakes getting techcrunched. Point worth taking a note is that it is developed by a group primarily based in Bangladesh.

9. Michael Arrington
   

   October 3rd, 2006 at 10:38 pm

   Drama - I’ll assume you are asking serious questions. I think that a loyal userbase is a valuable asset, just as real estate is an asset, even if not being monetized at that time. The valuations placed on many startups that had little revenue (myspace is an example) illustrate this.

   I think some people are remembering the 90s and thinking that we’re seeing that all over again. We aren’t. The big difference is on the cost side, where startups are keeping things under control.

10. Drama 2.0
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 12:02 am

    Michael: Question two was, of course, more serious than question one. I respect your opinion and don’t think the current environment is exactly analogous to the 1990s, but a few points:

    - MySpace was purchased by News Corp. in 2005. Although MySpace was not profitable, it reportedly did $47 million in revenue in 2005. Not an insignificant amount. Also recall that MySpace was owned by Intermix, a publicly-traded company, so the entity being acquired had enough revenue to qualify for a market listing. As such, Netvibes and Pageflakes cannot be compared to properties like MySpace on an apples to apples basis.

    - Loyal userbases are great but value is generated from revenues and profitability. There are lots of things you could do to build loyal userbases that would be minimally monetizable. For example, I know people that run very large online message boards (50,000 - 150,000 members) with extremely loyal userbases and have detailed demographic data on the users. They make decent money, but nobody is going to pay tens of millions for them. Obviously we don’t know the valuation Netvibes was given for $15 million, but I fail to see how this type of service is any different than a popular message board, especially when it’s generating no revenues and the level of demographic data they collect is probably similar at best. The only difference? Web 2.0, AJAX, etc.

    Real estate is a really bad comparison. I can sell a home much more easily than I can a property like Netvibes (at least before the housing bubble bursts). Let’s say Netvibes gave up 60% of the company to raise $15 million (just a guess). Is Netvibes, an easily duplicated service with no revenue, worth $25 million to somebody? Maybe Terry Semel, but it’s almost like asking $1 million for a 1 bedroom, 900 square foot house in Ruraltown, USA.

    - Your point about the cost side is interesting. Certainly the cost of starting a Web 2.0 company is minimal, and some successful Web 2.0 startups have taken little to no funding and achieved a nice exit (Flickr, etc.). That’s the way it should be done. I fail to see how a startup like Netvibes needs $15 million and a startup like Podshow needs $23+ million. These numbers are small compared to all the high 9 and 10 figure investments being made in Bubble 1.0, but they are still out of proportion with what the business reasonably can be expected to need. Many of those Bubble 1.0 investments were made in companies that had high development costs (infrastructure, inventory, etc.) whereas the majority of Web 2.0 startups don’t have these. It would be interesting to do an analysis on the current funding compared to Bubble 1.0 funding to see if VCs are overfunding in similar proportions.

    Regardless, valuation is everything to your exit strategy. Why take $15 million when you don’t need it? Why raise the bar so high that you price yourself out of the market for potential acquirers?

11. Ole Brandenburg
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 12:07 am

    So the 5 million users is based on cookies generated on first time visit. That really does make sense then. I was seriously wondering about the rumored 5 million signups. That sounded fake from my point of view. Well, we don’t measure the same way Netvibes does, so it would be like comparing apples to oranges. Therefore, no real value in that comparison.

    Cheers
    Ole

12. Michael Arrington
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 1:45 am

    Drama, you raise some good, but different points in this most recent comment. Based on what I know, I agree that Netvibes did not need to raise that much money - but I also have heard rumors of a very high valuation. This is a double edged sword because they didn’t give up as much equity for the money, but their exit options are limited by the valuation.

    I’m with you 100% on Podshow. I know that they can easily spend that money, and probably are, but I don’t necessarily see a market there. I’m often wrong, though.

    I always try to remember that the ultimate value of an asset in our market based economy is exactly what the highest bidder will pay for it. Given that these bidders are well educated and playing with their own money, I have nothing negative to say about it. The MySpace acquisition was heavily criticized at the time, but looks brilliant now.

    Also, when I write publicly, I feel comfortable criticizing products and features, but less comfortable criticizing corporate transactions like fundings and acquisitions. There usually isn’t enough information disclosed to make a fully informed opinion on the matter.

13. Alexandre
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 3:52 am

    Pageflakes 2.0 looks like a portuguese version of an ajax portal: http://www.origo.pt

14. Franck Poisson
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 6:16 am

    Michael,

    I get back to you soon on your email adress to introduce THE start page you missed and which will make money from start….www.webwag.com.

15. Felix Slatkin
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 6:21 am

    Another day, another customizable home page. Or a social networking site. Or both, in one!

16. Tim
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 6:53 am

    beta.pageflakes.com

17. Steve
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 11:48 am

    Damn. I was just getting ready to move my ‘life’ over to Netvibes when I saw the post about Pageflakes. Now what? Anyone spend enough time on both to offer a preference?

18. Jeff
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 12:19 pm

    Apart from the Web 2.0 geeks & folks who have nothing better to do with their life, how is this site providing a good service? Does it really help anyone with his “real life” ?

19. jeff
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 12:58 pm

    @ Steve
    I use netvibes everyday and love it. I did spend yesterday and today messing around with pageflakes, and I will say one thing, that the load time is infinitely slower than netvibes. It even locks up my browser (firefox) when it’s loading everything. The only advantage that I see is the more advanced RSS reader (where you can read all feeds in one window) and also the addition of sharing tabs/pages. Otherwise, netvibes is much better, and the dev. staff is very responsive and is always developing new and better ways to improve netvibes. Hopefully it will be only a matter of time before they have sharable tabs too.

20. mesattack
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 1:39 pm

    The functionality of netvibes, pageflakes, protopage, et al is disturbingly easy to create. While they have picked up a lot of users I doubt this will stop a train from hitting them. Start pages are cool but I don’t see how you will monetize that especially when google gives their clone away.

    I agree with Mike that the users have short-term value. Long-term the technology is not disruptive enough.

21. ZenBug
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 1:52 pm

    Son of a…!

    …I’m so tired of evaluating competing Web services. I started with Google Home Page, then moved to PageFlakes. Now I’m with NetVibes, and here I’ve learned about a few other versions. I don’t have time to check out everything, but I’d like to take advantage of the best one.

    Then again, anything one service does will likely be adopted by the others eventually.

    It’s exhausting.

22. Technogeekboy
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 6:12 pm

    I’m still waiting on the next version of Protopage. It’s the lightest on widgets, but I still have not been swayed from it. Ultra customizable (columns, ha!) and fast loading. Plus the ability to embed your own html or entire web pages.

23. streamcast
    

    October 6th, 2006 at 1:17 pm

    Pageflakes is already far more convenient than its competitor Netvibes.

24. rc
    

    October 6th, 2006 at 8:54 pm

    after posting on this page (which appears to have vanished) re my poor experience and lack of response from the help folk at netflakes, guess what? I get a note in my G-mail expressing sorrow for my frustration and inconvience but there debugger has been out of town for a week at a meeting. Which contradicts their previous statement they were working on the prob. Thats all well and good, I do not look forward to reding calendars etc. But will do so somewhere else as I also dislike customer services this arrogant so early in the game I can only imagine what they will be like if they actually get significant numbers…..rc

25. Alexandre
    

    October 15th, 2006 at 4:29 pm

    When Pageflakes will launch? In a day or two…13 days pass and still not launch anything.

    Anyone have more screenshots of this release? I’m curious

26. Hans Feldmeier
    

    October 16th, 2006 at 6:45 am

    A couple of days are gone: there is no launch of Pageflakes. What´s up?! Do you know more about? Let me know please! Thxs

27. Christoph Janz
    

    October 18th, 2006 at 1:20 pm

    It has been done! Check it out.

28. Rafael Zina
    

    October 22nd, 2006 at 5:39 pm

    Wow ! What a Great 2.0 Version !
    Congratulations Pageflakes team i really enjoyed this version
    i am each day liking pageflakes more and more than ever !