If you run a website that others are going to use, there’s probably a desire to find a mixture between user-customization and putting forth your content. For simple sites, that’s easy enough, but what if you want to change the design of pages, and put in elements like new widgets? Netvibes now has a way.
Its new Premium Dashboards product gives publishers the ability to push out new content and site changes, while at the same time giving users on the other end some control over what they want to see from these changes. Regular Dashboard members will be told that there are new updates available (just as you would be with your computer operating system) and are asked to update. But Premium Dashboard members can pick and choose which updates to accept or reject.
This seems like a smart play from both Netvibes and its publishers perspective because most users are probably going to choose to accept whatever changes are being pushed towards them. But at the same time, they’ll know in the back of their minds that they do have a choice not to, which is always reassuring. And this whole process maintains the simplicity that leads publishers to choose Netvibes in the first place.
I also like that the demo they sent us is using Chromium for Mac, which is of course, the unreleased and unfinished Mac version of Google Chrome. Ballsy.
What’s the purpose and the benefit for the vendor ?
Rather unclear. Probably due to our limited knowledge.
More information here: http://blog.net.../#comment-11789
In a nutshell, classic web publishing is about publishing and an audience reading. The only engagement the audience has with the site is hyperlinks, save, bookmark and print.
With Personalized Pages we empowered readers to take control and make their own pages, the way they like them. This included a hierarchy of interest in rearranging a layout, enrichment when adding missing information sources, theme changes, etc…
The only limitation in this model is when the page is personalized, the publisher can’t force any new updates to the risk of violating the user’s now new property.
What Netvibes realized is Operating Systems and browsers, just to name the obvious ones, have the same challenge. People personalize their Mac or Windows but Apple and Microsoft still want to publish updates of all sorts. security, content/apps, UI…
To respect their users and continue to publish to them, they notify them and offer them to accept, refuse or hand pick what updates they want. Their choice. Users remain in control.
Netvibes Push Publishing, now available in our Premium Dashboard, is just that. Premium Dashboard publishers publish and their audience is notified and manage their update the way they want.
Of course, like for OS or browsers, Premium Dashboard publishers can lock the user’s choice, of accepting or refusing, like the aforementioned Corporate policy does.
Our goal is to provide a unique Personal Dashboard Publishing Platform for the ultimate trust based engagement where publishers provide fresh updates and Readers have control.
Hope this helps. Feel free to contact us at business [at] netvibes.com