I received a beta invitation to test iBegin about one month ago, but was immediately dissappointed in their service and could never build up the desired level of animosity to write a “First Look” for them. Luckily enough for iBegin a lot of others did take an active role in the beta test and they have turned their service 180-degrees in the oppposite direction.

iBegin is a local search engine, currently only Toronto is supported, that simply does local search right. The front page is focused on search, much in the way Google’s home page is - there’s nothing there to distract you from what you intend to do. Varying query types allow you to pinpoint exactly what you are looking for, no more searching for “Library” and finding that obscure nightclub across town named “The Library.” A quick toggle between listing view and map view allows you to take location into account.

iBegin is a great local search engine, if you live in Toronto, otherwise you’re screwed. This is my only fault with iBegin - their strictly Web 1.0 release method. The majority of iBegin’s listings are provided by the users themselves - take the popular (and successful) route and launch all city’s now and let the users make your search better.

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Netvibes, a personalized home page I wrote about previously, has somewhat hinted at the release of what they call a “mini API.”

From the Netvibes Blog:

If you are a developer and want to build your own mini module on netvibes, you can join our api mailing list by sending us a request at netvibes_api @ netvibes.Com

You don’t need to be an expert to build something, basic HTML knowledge is just enough to make your own modules.

I’m not very impressed with how this API launch is taking place thus far. Netvibes hasn’t been well known for their developer support in the past, in fact it’s been non-existent - at least this is a step (a small one) in the right direction. Unfortunately, dictating that those interested must join a mailing list isn’t the right way to go about this. Shouldn’t an effective API launch include a lot of hype, a few examples, and way to get your “widgets” into the application as quickly as possible? Even the Netvibes Wiki lacks any information on the API launch.

Finally, why do companies insist on touting how easy it is to write your own widgets? “You can do it with simply HTML, no programming knowledge needed!” I see a rash is starting to break out on my arm… I must be allergic to bullshit! Yes, technically you could write a widget in only HTML (”Hi, I wrote this widget, it shows the Google logo - it’s l33t!”), but no one would use it. A widget requires programming knowledge to do anything useful, if it’s not useful it probably won’t even make it beyond the submission form.

And would people with no programming experience even care to make an attempt at writing their own widget? Do they know what a widget is?

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News Corp has announced they have purchased a new property, as well as their ability to purchase up to five more top Web 2.0 brands. They have yet to say which company they have purchased, except that they were present at Under the Radar and it was not MySpace competitor Tagged. This leaves one of the following 31 companies:

AirSet | Box.net | Browster | BubbleShare | CalendarHub | Dabble DB | Dogster | Eurekster | Flock | Goowy | Kaboodle | Loomia | Meetro | Mosuki | NowPublic | Popist | Rallypoint | Riya | Rollyo | SimplyHired | Simpy | Skobee | Sphere | Spy Media | TagCloud | Tagged | TailRank | The Form Assembly | Wink | Zoho | Zvents

My bet is on BubbleShare, TailRank, or Zvents. Both BubbleShare and Zvents could provide an increased featureset for News Corp’s Internet King, MySpace.com, whereas TailRank could provide an entirely new service to the News Corp roster as well as a large user population.

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