An update on Pageflakes

It’s again been a very long time that I wrote something here, and an even longer time that I wrote about Pageflakes or about what I’ve been doing since I left the company about a year ago. I did become a reasonably active Twitterer in the meantime though – the 140 character format is probably better suited for my literal talent! Anyway, I thought it’s time for a quick update.

One of my last blog posts about Pageflakes was about my attempt to convince Mike Arrington and Pete Cashmore that Pageflakes was the Next Big Thing, my goal for 2006 as I put it (half joke, half serious). While both of them were very skeptical about the whole thing in the beginning, Pete wrote a very favorable posting about us in October 2006. Convincing Mike was more difficult but he got more and more positive over time as well, covering our 2.0 relaunch as well as release “Flurry” and “Blizzard” (thanks, Dan, for introducing a nicer release terminology!).

With each of our major releases we made it easier to create a personalized page and to get all the best the Web has to offer on one page. I think we also raised the bar for the whole category of personalized homepages with each release. This is the result of a huge team effort, which the whole Pageflakes team can be very proud of, especially if you consider that our most important competitors were iGoogle, MyYahoo and (vastly better-funded) Netvibes.

Nevertheless, although we did get more and more users who loved Pageflakes and used it as their very own entry point to the Internet and did get considerable mindshare, especially in the Web 2.0 community, we (and the whole market, for that matter) never grew as fast as we hoped. One of the reasons was that as much as we tried to make the product as easy-to-use as possible, the barrier to adoption was still a tad too high for many users. Creating your personal page just never got as easy as watching a video on YouTube. YouTube offers users instant gratification. Your own Pageflakes page may provide you more value in the long term, but getting there also takes a little longer. Likewise, although we had considerable success in redefining the product category of personalized startpages into a more "social" one, Pageflakes never got (and never could get) as social as, say, MySpace. Although hundreds of thousands of users created an extremely diverse variety of Pagecasts and shared them with their friends or with the general public, the majority of our users just enjoyed their pages privately. That didn’t come as a surprise, of course – Pageflakes falls under the 90/9/1 rule whereas you have to connect with friends on social networking sites.

We did hope that the product would get more viral and social though, and in order to become the next Yahoo! (our slightly ambitious stated goal when we started at the end of 2005) we would have needed higher organic growth rates (ironically, if Yahoo! continues to fare as badly as it did in the last months, we can still become the next Yahoo! ;-) ). So when 2007 turned to a close, we had an award-winning product with a loyal user base that was growing but wasn’t big enough and wasn’t growing fast enough in order to monetize the service effectively in the near term. Around the same time, the appetite of VCs to fund companies like ours started to decrease, resulting in worsened terms for startups. In that situation, we thought our best choice was to partner with a large player that has a huge amount of users.

Many know the rest of the story: In April 2008 we got acquired by LiveUniverse, the new media company of MySpace founder Brad Greenspan. Unfortunately our initial enthusiasm about the deal started to fade away quickly since Pageflakes quickly started to suck. First just a little (no more new features), then more and more (bad customer service, sudden introduction of obtrusive ads on users’ pages without any communication, downtimes), and the last dark climax was an outage of about four days without any communication from LiveUniverse to its users, causing a ton of understandable complaints of Pageflakes users on Twitter. It took me a long time to admit this publicly and I really don’t like to badmouth the company that bought Pageflakes, but it’s time for me to say sorry to all Pageflakes users. If a super loyal Pageflakes user like Phil Bradley has to write a blog post like this, you know that you have crossed a line. Phil has been using Pageflakes for years and wouldn’t leave the service light-mindedly. But enough is enough – his post says it all.

As of right now, Pageflakes is up again but because of the almost complete lack of communication on behalf of LiveUniverse I don’t know how long it’ll stay up and running. The company told CNet's Webware on Friday that the downtime was due to a data center migration but I don’t know if it’s true. Other reports indicate that they are in trouble. I’ll continue to use Pageflakes for now and will keep my fingers crossed that LiveUniverse will change course. If you do have to shut down the service, dear Brad Greenspan, please give the users at least two weeks’ notice to save their data and move to another service. There are many legitimate reasons why a company can fail or why a service needs to be shut down. But you really have to make sure that users get a chance to save their valuable data. Failure to do this is not only puts Pageflakes users in trouble, it also undermines users' trust in the cloud in general. Thank you.

Pageflakes 2.0

About two weeks ago we launched a new version of Pageflakes and it's time to finally announce it here, too! If you go to the site, you will notice the big facelift that the site received. The fresh new look might be the most visible change, but it's by far not the only one. The long list of improvements and new features of the new version includes:

• Page Templates
  Dozens of pre-created page templates for topics like work, family, sports, finance, entertainment, education and much more. Now it takes just a mouse click to add a whole page with the best modules for a certain topic area.
  
• Feeds and Podcasts
  A Feed Directory and a Podcast Directory with hundreds of news feeds and podcasts from all over the world and for almost every category.
  
• Community Site
  A new Pageflakes community environment at www.pageflakes.com/community which allows you to search, submit, rate and discuss flakes and do much more.
  
• Share your page!
  Setting up a shared page with other users is now easier than ever.
  
• Public pages
  A Public Pages Gallery of all the pages which Pageflakes users have published.

Check out the new site!

Pete is now a believer, Mike coming soon

When we launched Pageflakes, two of the Top Five Web 2.0 bloggers - Mike Arrington from TechCrunch and Pete Cashmore from Mashable - were very sceptical about Pageflakes. They thought we were too late and also questioned the viability of the whole AJAX startpage model.

We took up the challenge, and in some blog comments I wrote that one of my goals for 2006 is to convince these two chaps that Pageflakes is the Next Big Thing. I guess we're not that far yet, but we already have a triumph to celebrate. See what Pete blogged yesterday:

Pageflakes - I was dead wrong about Pageflakes. When the product was heading for launch, I told co-founder Christoph Janz that the start page market was already too crowded. As it turns out, Pageflakes is now one of the top ajax homepages, putting your feeds, videos and pictures together on a collection of tabbed pages. Christoph also (wisely) ignored me when I said I didn’t like the name - I seem to remember that SoleSite was the other option.

We still have 89 days left to convince Mike, too. Stay tuned!

The third generation of Internet usage

Richard MacManus started an interview series on Read/WriteWeb. In the first one he asked Judy Gibbons of Accel about her thoughts on the "next generation web". Read it here.

Richard asked Judy for a few examples of companies that are under-hyped. Judy's answer:

Personal home pages like Pageflakes & Netvibes. These represent the third generation of Internet usage: first portals because there was little content and it was hard to find; second search because there was an ever increasing amount of content if you could only track it down; now personalized 'pull' home pages, because most sophisticated users know what content and apps they want to check into every day - and they want these brought to them to improve productivity.

While we can't complain about not getting enough attention, I do completely agree with Judy that most people haven't yet fully realized the impact which startpages like Pageflakes and Netvibes can have in the future. Currently both Pageflakes and Netvibes appeal mainly to early adopters like you and me – TechCrunch readers who manage their bookmarks with Del.icio.us, upload their photos at Flickr and use a bunch of other Web 2.0 services which 90% of the general population never heard of.

But what you see on sites like Pageflakes today is a mere glimpse of what they can offer in the future (stay tuned!). As they cover more and more parts of users' digital lives, offer access to an ever increasing variety of mainstream services and become easier to use for casual Internet users, they will indeed be able to represent the "third generation of Internet usage", as Judy put it. If you will, companies like Pageflakes strive to become for Web 2.0 what AOL and Yahoo were for Web 0.5 and what Google is for Web 1.0.

The Hottest Web 2.0 Betas

The "Museum of Modern Betas", a site that is dedicated to keeping track of all those new Web 2.0 apps that are popping up every day, added a great resource to its site: The hottest betas in the webosphere. The list is based on the number of bookmarks at del.icio.us added within the last 7 days, which is a really interesting parameter. Pretty interesting for everyone who tries to discover successful startups before everyone else does (VCs, journalists,...).

Pageflakes wins Web 2.0 Award

Quoting from Ole's blog:

Yes, we do know that there are quite a few awards out there. Yes, we do also know that some of them are not very well researched and show little depth. However, SEOmoz.org has certainly raised the bar in terms of depth and research quality. Over the past few months they have analized hundreds of Web 2.0 sites - and Pageflakes has won the award for best Start Page! Google personalized pages came second, live.com (Microsoft) came third. You will find a detailed list and all the winners (and runners-up) at http://web2.0awards.org/.

Thanks to Kat Ortland who has been the driving force behind the research. We hope that you enjoy Pageflakes as much as she does.

Pageflakes Server Problem

Some famous people lend their names (which for some reason always start with an "M") to laws which we all love (Moore, Metcalfe). And then there are guys like Murphy.

To make a long story short, due to Murphy's Law and an insane amount of bad luck (what is the probability of two HD crashes within two days?), Pageflakes has been down or very slow for most of the past 48 hours. Needless to say, we're working like crazy to bring the site back.

We've very sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding and your patience!

ZDNet reviews AJAX desktops

ZDNet's Richard MacManus reviews the AJAX desktop space. About Pageflakes he says:

Just released earlier this month, but potentially Pageflakes will be the most open of all the AJAX homepages. It offers standard modules (which it calls "flakes") like blogs, news, search, note, Flickr, Del.icio.us. There are more modules in development by Pageflakes, third-party developers and "content partners". It's developer page lists a broad range of options for developers to build modules, so this is a promising start by Pageflakes. [...]

Among the smaller companies, Pageflakes seems to be the most promising with its API support. [...]

He also writes about the same topic on his (must-read) ReadWriteWeb blog. Among other things, he has a look at the Alexa traffic charts of the different players. One of his interesting observations is this:

Update: A source at Microsoft tells me that the Live.com figure on Alexa may include mail.live.com, which gets a lot of traffic. If that's the case, take the following paragraph with a grain of salt...

I recently noticed that Live.com, while unsurprisingly having much more traffic than the start-ups, isn't bookmarked more frequently than Netvibes and Pageflakes on Del.icio.us. I was wondering if Live.com may have a lot of traffic (very easy to achieve for Microsoft) but few real users who actually bookmark the site and come back? Richard's observation might be an explanation for the discrepancy between the Alexa numbers and the Del.icio.us numbers. Maybe Del.icio.us bookmarks are a better proxy to guesstimate another site's user base than Alexa after all?

"Online Ajax 'desktops' try to change the rules of the game"

ZDNet has a really neat introduction into the AJAX Desktop space:

Online Ajax "desktops" try to change the rules of the game

Written by Dion Hinchcliffe, the article lists some of the reasons why AJAX Desktops are so compelling. And of course I'm happy that just a week after our Beta Launch, Pageflakes is already recognized as "one of the best offerings" by a proven Web 2.0 expert.

New Pageflakes feature: Multiple pages

Did you notice that too? If you add some flakes and feeds, the page quickly beomes pretty crowded. One page simply doesn't offer enough space to accommodate all those useful flakes and feeds. The obvious answer: Let users have multiple pages.

Thanks to out extraordinary development team we just added this feature, and I think it's really neat. For example, you can create one page related to your job, another one for your family and yet another one for your hobby. Play around with it a little, I'm sure you'll like it!

BTW, we also added a new Map Flake based on MSN Map. Check it out!

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

Pageflakes Releases Public Beta

We're thrilled to announce the release of our Public Beta! Over the past weeks, we fixed many bugs and glitches, implemented numerous improvements, added support for Firefox and created a number of really nice flakes. Thanks to all users and developers who provided us with their valuable feedback!

Pageflakes now features:

• Address Book: Manage your contacts right from your personal startpage that you can access from anywhere.
• Price Comparison: Start price comparisons using a variety of different comparison shopping engines like Shopping.com and mySimon. Also features price comparison engines from the UK and Germany.
• Flickr: This one can make your page look beautiful. Select photos by tag, date or Flickr user.
• Alexa Traffic: Keep an eye on the traffic of up to five sites.
• Web Search: Start Web searches using Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask.com. Look for Web pages, images, news or Usenet discussions.
• Dictionary: Title says it!
• Note: A simple notepad, like a digital version of Post-it® notes.
• To-Do-List: You can set up multiple lists and tasks and receive reminders by email. Really helps you to get things done.
• GMail: Keep track on incoming mails to your GMail account.
• Become.com Shopping Search: Start shopping searches using Become.com.
• Movie Find: Quick access to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and RottenTomatoes.com.
• What’s Next on BBC: For our visitors from the UK.
• Zoho Writer Docs: Access your Zoho Writer documents right from Pageflakes.
• Yahoo! Weather: Enter your ZIP code and get the current local weather plus a forecast.
• Del.icio.us: Your Del.icio.us bookmarks on Pageflakes.
• SMS: Send a free text message!

...and the list goes on.

In addition to that, of course you can also subscribe to news feeds and blogs. This is implemented in a very simple way so far, but a full-fledged RSS reader is coming soon.

We hope you enjoy the site! If you like it, recommend it to your friends. When you check out the site, please bear in mind that this is still a Beta Version. So, please forgive any inconveniences, and let us know if you experience any bugs.

OK, I gotta go back to work. Many new features and improvements are under way. :-)

eHub Interviews Pageflakes

Read it here

I'm up for the challenge, Mike! :-)

I already knew that Mike Arrington is very sceptical about AJAX desktops like Pageflakes.

Today I learned that he is similarly sceptical about online calendars like CalendarHub:

Ajax calendars are faily commonplace now (they are kissing cousins to Ajax home pages as far as I’m concerned) and seem to be breeding just as prolifically.

So, one of the most influential persons from the Web 2.0 world basically says that the two startups I'm involved with are doomed.

What should I say? Maybe just this: I'm up for the challenge, Mike! :-)

P.S.: I know that Mike wishes every startup success, so I know that while he fears we may fail he doesn't hope so.

Pageflakes nearing launch

We’re getting closer to our Public Beta in large steps. Here’s a little update:

• Pageflakes can now be viewed with Firefox and Opera. You might still experience a bug though. Please forbear with us – we’re working hard to offer 100% Firefox, Opera and Safari support ASAP. It won’t take long until we’re done.
• We created a really cool Address Book Flake. We tried to keep it simple (in a 37signals kind of way) and I’m very happy with the result. We will add some more very useful features to this Flake in the future (e.g. import/export and printing of contacts), but we’ll make sure that usability won’t suffer. Check it out!
• Another really cool new module is our To-Do-List Flake. It allows you to manage multiple To-Do-Lists, set due times and receive email reminders. When a task is done, tick the checkbox and it’ll be stroked-through. Hit “delete” and it will be removed completely. Simple! This comes very handy for people like me who lose everything they write on paper and who’re thus trying to put every bit of information online.
• Thanks to our fantastic Community Developers, we’ve been able to add several applications from independent developers already, just five weeks after the Developer Release: My personal favourites include the Del.icio.us Flake, the Movie Finder Flake and the Bushisms Flake, but be sure to try and enjoy them all. You’ll find them under “Add Content”.
• Together with the folks over at AdventNet Inc., we created a little module that lets you access your Zoho Writer documents right from your personal startpage. Pretty handy. Thanks, guys!
• Many glitches fixed, but still some to fix before we can launch the site big.

Many new exciting flakes are in the works – by our own developer team as well as by Community Developers and companies we’ve partnered with. So, stay tuned!

If you check out the site, please bear in mind that we’re not in Public Beta yet. So, please forgive any inconveniences, and let us know what you like and what you don’t like.

The Whole Web at Your Fingertips: Introducing Pageflakes.

I’m exceedingly happy to announce Pageflakes, my new startup.

Pageflakes will start as a personalized startpage (a.k.a. AJAX desktop) that allows you to read blogs and other RSS/Atom feeds, check your email, get the latest sports news and stock quotes, start Web searches and use services like Del.icio.us or Flickr, all conveniently accessible from any PC and from one page. I’m sure there are at least 5-10 sites that you check every single day, in fact probably several times a day. Pageflakes saves you some of this effort by aggregating the content that’s relevant for you into one nice page. A bit like an RSS aggregator, only that it’s not limited to RSS feeds.

But that’s only the beginning. Over time, we want Pageflakes to evolve into THE entry point to your digital life, allowing you to do everything from managing to-do lists to watching Internet TV to checking your voice mailbox and much more. A suitable name for that might be Digital Life Aggregator (similar to the term “Digital Lifestyle Aggregator”, which AFAIK was coined by Marc Canter) or Next Generation Internet Services Platform (a term recently used by Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie when talking about Microsoft’s new Live.com initiative).

If that sounds familiar to you, the idea of a personalized startpage has been around for years. Excite and Yahoo tried it several years ago, but we think it takes new technologies and approaches like AJAX, RSS and APIs and other Web 2.0 ideas for this concept to really take-off. Thanks to AJAX you’ll get a desktop-like experience. Thanks to widespread content syndication you’ll be able to add an incredible variety of content and services to your personal page. To make the Web 2.0 buzzword compliance, we also address The Long Tail of software by allowing developers to contribute their applications to Pageflakes.

We just launched our “Developer Release”, so right now we’re not even in alpha yet. However, if you go to our site you can already see some prototype modules (“flakes”) and enjoy some AJAX Drag & Drop goodness.

When you look at the site, please don't forget that we’re pre-alpha. 99% of the functionality is still missing, the design implementation is not perfect yet and there are still some glitches. Basically we're at a point where others put up a teaser page. Once we target the general public, we will also support Firefox, of course.

Finally, if there’s anything that I’m more excited about than the idea itself, it’s our team. It includes someone who co-founded Alando.de (which was acquired by eBay) and an exceptional team of oustanding software engineers from Bangladesh. I think this posting is too long already, so I’ll talk some more about my partners on a later occasion.

Now have a look at Pageflakes, subscribe to the launch notification and let me know what you think!

P.S.: “Are you kidding me? Do you really want to compete with mighty Microsoft and Google?” Well, in a way we will. In the beginning, Pageflakes, Live.com and Google’s Personalized Homepage will look pretty similar. But over time, we expect the three to develop into somewhat different directions. We’ve got a hell of a lot of cool ideas on how we’re going to improve and extend Pageflakes in the future (and I’m sure so do the other teams – but we probably don’t have the same plans). In addition, our advantage as a small startup is that we’re quick, that we can flexibly react to the needs of our users and that we’re totally focused on what we’re doing. Finally, we’re not saying that we will drive Live.com or Google/IG out of business. There’s space for more than one player in this emerging market, and we’re satisfied if we get a sizeable chunk of it.