Netvibes: Yay or Nay?

I’ve been trying Netvibes for the past few days. After I spent some time looking through the module directory and getting everything configured, I like it. I finally have a way to keep almost all of my web services and applications in one place. Not only that, I can organize them into separate tabs.

E-Mail

I have five e-mail addresses so the first thing I did was create a tab called mail. In this tab I put modules for each of accounts. Now, at a glance, I can see when a new message comes in and what account it was addressed. I then added a Google talk module. A bonus, even if I am not on the mail tab, the total number of unread messages for all my accounts is displayed on the top of the tab.

Blog

Second, I created a tab called ImPerceptibility. I set this as a two-column tab. After a lot of searching in the module directory I added my StatCounter, the feeds for my blog and comments, and by pasting the widget code into an empty html module, FeedBurner and MyBlogLog. Now I have a tab that shows me everything I usually view when I check on my blog and it’s all on one page. There is also a module to access your WordPress dashboard.

Feeds

Then I created a single column tab and added the web page for my Google Reader. I called that Google Reader. It works ok, but I still like to go directly to that page. If you use BlogLines as your feed reader there is a custom module that will show you the number of unread posts. Clicking on the number will open up your bloglines/myfeeds page.

Net Applications

Another tab holds all the odds and end I use occasionally or am just starting to use. Del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc. There are modules for MySpace, flickr, Fox sports videos, and many others.

General

My main tab has several to-do lists, a net-note section, and search modules for images, videos, web, and blog. Having my various to-do lists on the front page seems to motivate me to get things done. After I’ve marked a few off I can go to my other tabs and have fun.

Once you get all tabs set you can customize the icons. The modules on each tab can be customized by color and moved around within the tab. The modules can be collapsed into just a title bar so if you have several modules, you don’t have to scroll down.

Overall, it’s kind of like iGoogle with more options. It helps sort out all your sites visually and keep things manageable. I think once I stop playing around with the modules and settings it will probably save some time as well.