Daily Tidbits: Netvibes gets facelift, NY Times enlists help from celebrities
In today's round-up, Netvibes adds new features to improve the design of its service, and the NYTimes.com hires celebrities to help turn things around.
Personalized home page provider, Netvibes announced Monday that users are now able to arrange widgets on their home page in a variety of new ways to improve their page's design, instead of using the current, simple arrangement options. Each widget also features a new view mode, which allows them to decide how each is displayed. Users can choose among a carousel view, ticker display, magazine layout, or a headline view.
The NYTimes.com announced Tuesday that it has started a new marketing campaign to increase the popularity of its site. According to the company, it has added a new page to the site, which features 12 "original, unscripted videos" with celebrities discussing their favorite sections. The celebrities include Kenneth Cole, John Leguizamo, and Ben Stein, among others.
Real estate search engine Roost.com announced Tuesday that it has inked a deal with CoreLogic, a provider of home sale information, to add foreclosed properties to the company's database of listings. It will now feature 1.5 million foreclosed homes from across the U.S.
NextWorth, a company that specializes in online trade-ins of broken or out-dated tech, announced Tuesday that it has signed a deal with both Amazon.com and Circuit City. NextWorth users who trade in their iPhones or iPods to a Circuit City store or NextWorth itself now have the option of receiving a Circuit City gift card or an Amazon gift card for the value of the trade-in.
Search start-up Kosmix announced Tuesday that it has secured $20 million in funding from Time Warner and existing investors Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Dag Ventures. The company's executives said they will use the funding to accelerate growth and customer reach worldwide.