Social Media Start Pages
Overview
Many of us use a normal web page, like the BBC, as our home page. But there are many websites offer a personalised start page. There are an increasing number of innovative organisations that are making it even easier to add RSS feeds, social networks and blogs. The start page is now getting interactive with webmail and Twitter updates now possible. Start pages are now important social media tools. The trick is to make the process of setting up the start pages as easy and accessible as possible, but at the same time powerful enough to use for research purposes. The future is in integrating the different social media sites to assist users in managing them all. In the past I have used the two heavyweights Yahoo! and iGoogle. FriendFeed has established itself as an aggregator of social networking. However, many of the aggregators have limitations as well as their USPs. July 2009.
Best Start Page: Netvibes
Runner up: Streamy
See more below.
CHIMP
chi.mp is an aggregator of your different online social network identities. You bring the stream of information together on your own .mp domain name. You can create different personal and professional profiles showing different information to different contacts but this may be a redundant feature in reality as it assumes you have that many contacts who will use chimp. One aspect of this is that it is a contact manager but it is a tortuous process separating them out in to different profiles. The site can collate social media and RSS feeds. It makes heavy weather of the usability of its features and users may find it is not worth the hard work.
Start.io
As with Second | Brain it is a start page based on using links. In this way it emulates Delicious and categorises your links onto a very simple page. There are no widgets or images, just links. A neat trick is that it lets you know when your bookmarked sites have been updated - helpful for blogs. There is a iPhone/iTouch version. Simple site useful for tracking updates to blogs.
Netvibes
Netvibes is a popular start page in how it is easy to use and customisable. To get round the RSS issue It uses widgets. The widgets are stored in a catalogue which works a breeze. Once added widgets can be dragged around the page. To manage them you can create browser style tabs. Where it falls down is trying to be a social network. Using widgets to view social media feeds works well but the public/private pages is irrelevant. Netvibes also has its own RSS feed reader and blog search tool to help you find sources for widgets. The best overall start page.
PageFlakes
Pageflakes is very similar to Netvibes in using widgets to create a start page. Emphasising its social media flavour it provides these widgets from the off. Essentially it is a direct rival to Netvibes: you open the menu, add widgets, organise your layout, add pages to organise widgets, and personalise your theme. You can even create public/private pages and view other users' pages. Features that I like are podcasts and your own mini-blog. Strong alternative to Netvibes.
SuperGlu
SuprGlu is a start page that integrates social media feeds creating a blog-style user interface. SuprGlu displays information from your various feeds into a grid with recent links. A simple and well laid out site if you just want to organise your social media feeds onto one page.
Feedly
Feedly is a Firefox extension but is worth considering in how its analyses your browsing activity to evaluate what you are most interested in. While it syncs with Google Reader that is not essential. It requires you add your own feeds rather than using widgets. Professionally laid out like a magazine it is easy to add and use drag and drop to move stuff around. Some of the features are hidden and it requires patience to personalise.
Second | Brain
Not a start page per se but included as its attempts to bring together user generated content from the web. You can organise your content into categories and then share with others creating most popular links. Its design is not too far away from Twitter in how it has a linear stream of links. The social networking aspect is in how recent public content from friends appears on your homepage. You can also comment on the new content. Likely to stay on the margins it will appeal to people who enjoy sharing content found on the web.
Streamy
Streamy is undoubtedly a cool social media site. It brings together news feeds with social networking so you can share them with other users and comment on what news passes you by with some trendy icons and styles. The user interface is both great to look at and innovative. You can create widgets for Twitter searches. Everything can be organised through drag and drop. Streamy can recommend news based on your activity on the site. Taking off Facebook Streamy allows you to update your status chat with friends and comment on news items that have been shared. A tantilising proposition that blends news with social networking.