Five Cool Netvibes Modules

Posted by Michael Koby

November 24, 2006

I am on the internet a lot. In fact, I have access to the internet and the web pretty much 8-12 hours a day. I get on the web first thing in the morning, on breaks at work, and at various times throughout the night after coming home from work. For the longest time I used My Yahoo! as my homepage. My Yahoo! was simple, and as the years went on, it got easier to manipulate to include the data you wanted most. Overall, I liked the experience with My Yahoo! but that was before I discovered Netvibes. Netvibes is a Web 2.0 homepage. Utilizing RSS and AJAX the folks over at Netvibes are changing the way you look at web homepages. My Netvibes page has 7 tabs that keep track of the various kinds of information I like to be “in the know” on. Everything from tech news, to email, to my Netflix account is accessible from my various Netvibes tabs. So for this week’s list I decided to point my readers at some of the Netvibes modules that I make daily use of.

5) English Dictionary – I can admit that I am not the world’s best speller. In fact, I’m sure you can find several spelling mistakes in various posts on my website. While I do make every attempt to find the mistakes before I post, it is almost a certainty that some will still make it through. In combination with my spell checker, I use this module when spell check can not find the word I want. A good help for anyone who writes.

4) Del.icio.us – This is a Netvibes created module that you can find on their “Add Content” link in the top left corner of your Netvibes homepage. I use this module when I am trying to find a site I have bookmarked. It gives you your del.icio.us tag cloud and your most recent bookmarks. Clicking on a tag, gives you the bookmarks for that tag.

3) Netflix – I have to give a thumbs up to the person(s) behind this module. This is probably hands down one of the coolest user submitted modules for Netvibes. Utilizing the RSS feeds that Netflix gives each of their users, this module tells you what is next in your queue, your shipped DVDs, and even your recommendations. It also tells you what the new releases are as well as the top movies. Awesome module!

2) Digg – This as well as our number 1 module is a Netvibes created module that you can find on their “Add Content” link in the top left corner of your Netvibes homepage. I like the news, the more news I read throughout the day, the more in touch I feel with what is going on in the world. I do not care if it is tech news, world news, business news, or even funny news, I like it all. The Digg module from Netvibes lets you pick from any of Digg’s main topics or you can just get everything. You can also select the total number of “diggs” an article must have before it will show up in the module, further ensuring that you only see what you care about.

1) Gmail – This is a Netvibes created module that you can find on their “Add Content” link in the top left corner of your Netvibes homepage. When it comes to life on the internet, one of the main means of communicating is email. Email is the tie that binds everyone on the internet so without it, we are pretty much out of the loop. My Gmail account is my main email address so having uninterrupted access to it is important to me getting things done. That is why Netvibes’ own Gmail module is number one on my list. Without it, I would have to actually go log in to my Gmail account to know if new mail as arrived. The module takes you straight to the message you clicked on without asking for credentials and you get all the necessary things, like the reply box and other Gmail goodies.

I know there are many more Netvibes modules out there. Do you have a favorite? If so, then tell us about it in the comments.

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