Protopage adds support for podcasts with Version 3
By Vivek | November 27th, 2006 at 01:36 pm ET
After a number of false starts, Protopage today finally launched the version 3 of their homepage product. With the update, Protopage has added number of new features that will help it to catch with the top homepage service providers like Netvibes and Google Personalized homepage. Protopage Widget showcase now has more than 270 widgets and you can quickly preview the widgets before adding them to your account. Protopage has added an internal RSS feed reader that supports keyboard shortcuts, and has multi-feed display, and provides quick viewing of news articles. Protopage has also added support for cartoon feeds, video podcasts, and audio podcasts with an integrated podcast player. Users now also have the ability to create tabs and categories, make the tabs public or private, and password protect group of tabs. Users can create to-do lists which has support for multi-level format, edit-in place list items and drag-drop feed items within a list or to other to-do widgets. Even the sticky notes have been upgraded to enable click and edit of text inside the widget. Protopage now has an integrated search box with 750 preloaded search engines that enables easier searching across Wikipediaorg, Dictionary.com, IMDB.com among others. Protopage is also expanded it’s support for number of browsers which now includes IE 7/6, Firefox 2/1.5, Opera 9, Safari 2, and you can even view your Protopage Nintento Wii.
With the launch of this new release, and the support for audio/video podcast and the ability to customize page background with different color combinations+wallpapers makes Protopage one of the best homepage services available.
But from the new feature release perspective I will favor module based release instead of a major upgrade of site that was experienced by Protopage users. Most of the existing users tend to get lost among the number of new features offered and might result in users switching to some other service. Also the development team will have to work on fixing fewer bugs simultaneously instead of conducting sitewide bug-fighting operation.
Other competing services in homepage market include Netvibes, Webwag, Pageflakes, Yourminis, Google, and Windows Live.
Links:
Protopage
on November 28th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Thanks so much for taking the time to look at yourminis.com. We are adding a lot of tools to help you manage and share your data in the next week.
We are also launching a new community around sharing tabs next week that includes the ability to find, rate, comment on and add tabs. This will help you discover people that share similar interests or are experts in a space and allow you to share in their work.
Below are a few examples of some early tabs that are published…
www.yourminis.com/coldplay
www.yourminis.com/mavs
www.yourminis.com/vrod2
www.yourminis.com/gearsofwar
Also please try the browser plugin for yourminis. It calls up yourminis in heads up mode over any page you are on and gives you a series of 1 click options for adding rss feeds, videos, pictures, friends from social networks, microformats and more….
Thanks for your support.
on December 2nd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Phew! It%u2019s done now!! Just rearranged my updated Protopage. I’m now able to do much-much more as you have described and the effort to learn how was worth every second. The sharing option is really what does it for me, my extended family and friends have already got the ball rolling with amazing stills and wedding party videos with sound-bite comments. Protopage is just the best thing! Thanks Guys.