I've tried to create a homepage for our Friends of the Library group using Microsoft Publisher and it was NOT a fun experience. I've used Google (for blogging) before and I always try to stick with what I know and have experience with, so going into this exercise I was certain that iGoogle would be the best.
After looking at NetVibes, it seems to have the upperhand over Google. I think the main reason for this is that Google has so much going on already, that it hasn't really focused too much attention on making this particular aspect great. NetVibes focuses all of it's attention on dashboards, etc, so they can develop a superior product.
First and foremost, NetVibes is very pretty...prettier than iGoogle. NetVibes is pretty even before you try to make it pretty. This is good for librarians because as smart as we are, some of us are not as computer-HTML-design savvy as others, so having things be sleek and vibrant straight away is great. iGoogle just seems very boring to start, and that let's everyone know that it will take a good deal of manipulation to make it someone patrons will want to access.
NetVibes allows you to check email, access Facebook (which is still huge with everyone, young and old), find weather reports and much more. Librarians could create communities with patrons via Twitter, Facebook, etc, that go beyond the library building itself. This is imperative with focus shifting toward Virtual Libraries. When looking at iGoogle customization settings, there are so many options to choose, and many of them are too unfamiliar and a librarian would need to do research before choosing things that might work, and a busy librarian might not want to do all that.
NetVibes just seems more straight forward and user-friendly. I didn't feel intimidated with NetVibes, and I just felt very overwhelmed and cofused with iGoogle.
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