Netvibes - best free tool you never heard of

I rarely (this would be the first time ever) promote any particular online tool but this is one that I just have to share. http://www.netvibes.com is a free online media tracking tool that provides a wide range of information about what is out there about any particular set of key words. I use it to track the external communications regarding St. John's and find that it provides me with a wide range of current information all in the same place.

As it is free, there is no reason not to try it out - for that matter, you can run a search on whatever you want for free and then create a log in (still free!) after you have seen what it will provide.

There are 5 tabs within the tool and the "main" tab is in my mind the least useful. It contains what amounts to a customizable home page with feeds from each of your personal accounts and provides a terrific customizable set of options, allowing you to view your twitter feed, facebook account, news, etc on a single page. While not a waste of space, it is really about you, not the search focus you are looking for and is all available through other venues as well - nothing unique here.

The next three tabs are the heart of the product and provide news ,videos and conversations on whatever search terms you entered. These are updated consistently, are more accurate than most of the free search services that I have used otherwise and the tab style provision is terrific.

Following my own search terms tonight for St. John's it shows me a couple of pretty cool results. Twitter provides me with a nice blog post on the conversations tab while the news tab leads with a terrific flickr image search and the video tab includes links through to the you tube videos from last christmas and the fireworks on campus as viewed by an alum.

Each tab has multiple widgets that are customizable, placeable and removable. Multiple searches are supported with a drop down allowing you to select a different set of searches such that you can follow either specific terms (ie STJ basketball) or multiple organizations.

The tool is terrific, the cost is perfect and the Netvibes folks don't spam or otherwise harass you once the account is set up. Give it a try, you will be glad you did!