"When I open my Web browser, I want to get the latest stuff that's really important to me," says software engineer, Web entrepreneur, and former journalist Tariq Krim. That's the idea behind Netvibes, a free and "agnostic" Web service Krim created to let netizens build customized pages from disparate modules such as RSS feeds from blogs, competing news sites such as Google and Yahoo, and even user-translated international sites. On the "Tariq" tab of his own ­Netvibes page, Krim uses search modules to track what bloggers are saying about him and his company. A portion of his page is shown below.

--Wade Roush