Protopage

I have found using Protopage to be quite different from Netvibes.  First of all, you really need to use Internet Explorer, because if you are using it with Firefox some of the widgets need 'plug-ins'.  It doesn't appear to be quite as intuitive to use as Netvibes, and the appearance of the pages is not quite as sharp and snappy.

There are endless wallpaper and colour schemes available, but it is relatively difficult to find one which makes for ease of reading.  In the end I settled for the scheme illustrated in the 19 Things blog, which seemed to present the best option in terms of sharpnesss and ease of reading.

I found the fact that you need to drag the widgets into the relevant tabs slightly confusing and rather laborious. 

I am not sure whether many of the widgets are really useful.  They seem to have a US bias, and are more suited to personal use.  However, this could be overcome by the use of RSS feeds, which will give the pages a more professional look.

So, in the discussion between the relative merits of Netvibes and Protopage, I definitely come out on the side of Netvibes for quality and ease of use.  The downside, of course, is as always the compatibility of these startpages with Internet Explorer and/or Firefox.