Personalized start page service Pageflakes today announced that their "Pagecasts" feature, which allows users to share their Pageflakes pages with the public or a specific group of users, has been used to push out 100,000 Pagecasts. They also announced the release of their Pagecasts directory which allows people to more easily find user pages.
While this announcement seems fairly insignificant, the quick uptake of the Pagecasts feature is really good news for the startup. One of their chief competitors, Netvibes, offers a similar feature called "Universes" that so far has only been used 156 times (or just over 3700 times if you count shared tabs).
Pageflakes CEO Dan Cohen might have been laying it on a bit thick when he told us stories about people using Pagecasts to educate students, voice political opinions and even of "children being adopted from Africa" (though Pagecasts are indeed being used in those ways), but there is still something potentially important about this service. Rafe Needleman hit the nail on the head, when he pointed out that people could use Pagecasts to more or less create their own Original Signal-like information aggregator.
Pageflakes is also working on their new "Blizzard" update coming in June, which will add greater customization tools (an area where the service currently lags behind some of their competitors) and long-awaited Safari support for Mac users.
Pageflakes 'Blizzard' update will add better customization options.
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Looks like they are up to 112,000 pagecasts now: http://www.pageflakes.com/Community/
I think it's a great and easy way of publishing your own page. It's very convenient for quickly pulling together what's important for you (or your group).
Kim
Posted by: Kim | May 23, 2007 11:57 AMThis is a really great upgrade.
The term "pagecast" really captures what PageFlakes is allowing users to do different than other sites.
Nice work guys!
Posted by: Steven Kaplan | May 23, 2007 2:28 PMDoes this start to become what the future of news is? a well put together personalized aggregation of content from the thousand points of light on the web?
What if my computer knew to print the pagecast at 6.30 am... format it nicely using RSStoPDF.com and have it ready in 11x17 format for me to staple and take with me on the train to work?
Posted by: ak | May 23, 2007 9:40 PMpagecasts is a platform for users all over to share ideas and generate more new ones. Pageflakes might potentially become the 'spark' that rekindle the user activitisms of the past. Only this time round, it's more powerful and far-reaching through the leverage of the www. Good work by pageflakes team.
Posted by: chihowe | May 26, 2007 10:47 PMThe Pagecasting feature is really interesting. Seems like it would be also be very useful for groups to share news, info and collaborate on things. Can't wait for those new customization options.
Posted by: Bont | May 31, 2007 8:31 AMThe Pagecasting feature is really interesting. Seems like it would also be very useful for groups to share news, info and collaborate on things. Can't wait for those new customization options.
Posted by: Bont | May 31, 2007 8:32 AM