Startpages are the new PIM tools
Are PIM tools still in vogue or are Startpages overtaking this space?
Here is my list of web 2.0 PIM tools (Personal Information Management)…these services have to be more than an RSS Reader and bookmark manager, I’m looking for services that contain an RSS Reader, bookmark manager, email, IM, notes, to-do, contacts, forum, blog, etc…
Brim
Haystack
Nextaris (no longer)
omea pro
My Personal Home Page
…I’m sure there are loads more, perhaps this is more a question for Listible, Otavo, Fanpop, etc…
Not included are similar tools that are not at a personal level, these are more web 2.0 based project management, content management services, such as eloops, Near-Time, Wild Apricot, centraldesktop, Basecamp, etc…
Also not included are services that only include calendars, to-do, notes, contacts eg. AirSet, HipCal, Backpack, etc…
I like the idea of an all in one PIM (Personal Information Management) tool, but the problem is that each module just doesn’t cut it, eg. I use Rojo for RSS Reading (I don’t really use the bookmarking module), I use del.icio.us for bookmarking, I use Gmail for email, calendar, IM, I use Yedda for Q&A, I use ziki for profile, I use Google Notebook for notes, I use Rasasa for alerts, and I haven’t yet worked out what I use for photo’s, video’s, tasks, to-do, time, files, etc…this list could go on forever, but I guess I have mentioned the essentials.
I guess the idea of a startpage (such as Pageflakes and netvibes) is a work around this as you can re-syndicate or enable widgets for all your services on the one page, these are especially effective when they are fully functional within the start page, eg. meembo, Gabbly, del.icio.us, and Box.net in netvibes.
Others that are not fully functional modules in netvibes are Flickr, Writely, digg, ebay, and Gmail.
At the same time startpages have their own tools such as bookmarks, calendar, weather, to-do, notes, RSS Reader (just check out the PageFlakes awesome inbuilt RSS Reader).
NOTE: you can even feed or OPML graze or web surf with the Bitty Browser widget…see the rest.
Startpages can have:
- inbuilt modules
- host other services basically fully functional
- host other services not fully functional
In a way startpages are becoming a dream, instead of a service trying to build the best swiss army PIM tool, you can create your own using a start page, thanks to widgets.
But then again a tool like Haystack allows for each of these modules to talk to each other, true integration…I feel the IBM PIM dashboards do a similar thing, eg. tag someone into Fringe Contacts from within the IM.
![email.png](http://services.nexodyne.com/email/icon/GxbiQvgbwBgCnw%3D%3D/oIp%2BJMQ%3D/R01haWw%3D/0/image.png"){kind=icon}
Yup, this is probably the way to go…
So, what additional tools should we provide from Yedda to make it easier for you to integrate it with your PIM vision?
Comment by Yaniv Golan — August 30, 2006 @ 8:28 am
Interesting article. I have used several of these tools, and they work quite well. I have seen Near-Time, and I think it works great in both capacities; bridging the gap betwee PID and group based collaborative products. You can have unlimited spaces in Near-Time, so some of the people using it at Vanderbilt simply create a space for group stuff, and a space for their own stuff to keep it private.
Comment by Kevin — August 30, 2006 @ 2:39 pm
Yaniv,
Firstly, perhaps a widget/module for netvibes…this way I can see the latest at Yedda within netvibes…even answer questions from within netvibes.
In the way of integration, this is more applicable in a closed environment…eg. send this IM question to Yedda, send this email to Yedda, tag this person in my email/IM contacts in my Yedda contacts (only if this person is registered with Yedda). But this means you have to have plugins for each IM service.
Another thing while I’m here, when I get an email invitation to answer a question, I’d like to be able to say I don’t want to answer the question without having to go to Yedda…I only want to go to Yedda if I’m going to answer the question, mostly because I can look at al the other answers so far.
What about if I ask a question in the comments field in a blog, perhaps I could use a bookmarklet to also publish this as a question in Yedda.
What about when I ask a question in my blog post, perhaps I could have my own special trackback URL, so I could publish the blog post, and ping my user space at Yedda, this would publish the post in Yedda (the topic tags would be the same as your blog post tags)…I got this idea from the LazyWeb, and The Internet Topic Exchange.
Comment by Johnt — August 31, 2006 @ 2:24 am