30Boxes, one of the best online calendars out there, yesterday launched Webtop, an app similar to personalised starting page Netvibes and Google’s own personal starting page:
The page can be accessed only when you’re already a 30Boxes member, and consists of some information about your appointments (taken from 30Boxes), links to GMail, Flickr, a to-do list and a Google Search module.
While I’m a huge fan of the 30Boxes calendar, I see no sense behind introducing yet another personalised starting page, especially if it holds such a spectacular lack of innovation. Netvibes, in my eyes the best personalised starting page out there, already has a module that lets you pull your 30Boxes feed. In addition to that, Netvibes provides a stunning amount of modules, and recently launched their eco-system, a place to exchange modules and feeds.
As much as I like 30Boxes, I think they should keep their focus on improving the calendar, instead of trying to be everything at once. That’ll only turn them into nothing at all.
Techcrunch’s Mike Arrington (who’s celebrating his blog’s 1st birthday today) writes about it here, Mashable’s Pete Cashmore here.
Richard MacManus chimes in with general observations on the state of the personalised starting pages.