The business of start pages
I’ve been investigating “start page” companies for work. I think they are awesome ideas, a website that helps you organize your life in a way that portal pages have failed. They let you truly customize your page in its look, the positioning of windows and what exactly is displayed. It’s a really cool service but for the love of me I haven’t figured out how these guys are going to make money? Can you sell a company that has a custom start page to a larger company? Would the larger company replace their start page? How many users would you need to have to make it worth while? If no one is going to acquire you how do you…I don’t know…make money? Advertising?
* Live.com - Microsofts smooth looking start page
* Google Homepage - Google another start page but with lots of plugins.
* Protopage - Can be a little overwhelming, but interesting take on the concept.
* Pageflakes - Looks cool, easy to navigate.
* Netvibes - One of the most popular. Martin V., and a group of other famous entrepenuers invested in this
There is another 5 or so that I’ve found that all basicly do the same thing. Recently some really smart people have invested in these companies so I think they must know something I don’t. If anyone has any ideas let me know.
Other then that, one company I like is Ning.com it’s not really a start page. It’s almost like a portal in a box. You can create and brand your own craiglists, or your own dating website. I think this is a model that has potential because many organizations and groups that want these types of applications and portals will never have the resources to develop them. I first learned of the company from Marc Andressen its founder. Marc is also the founder of Netscape, awesome guy.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Dear Ejovi,
I think they can sell the start pages to the big internet names. It is likely that the big names are eager to acquire not only thousands of permanent users, but also thousands of personal websites, including social network, commercial and entertainment preferences of their creators. It is an unmatched opportunity to “acquire†the life of thousands of pro-active internet users.
In few months I guess these start pages will incorporate personal blogs, expanding the commercial and social networks further.
Definitely companies like Google would be very interested in acquiring some of these start pages. The start pages’ promoters know this, and they facilitate the work by using gmail usernames.
Regards
April 1st, 2006 at 1:57 am
Good point.