Bug Labs, Chumby, Neuros, Netvibes, Facebook -- what do they all have in common? Open platforms.

Bug Labs is developing BUG, an open, modular, consumer electronics web services hardware platform. Designed for the general audience, not just the technically inclined, BUG is intended to bring to the world of hardware gadgets what the Internet, open source, XML and web services have brought to the world of software and media.

I must start this post by giving a plug to Netvibes, my favorite personal homepage. One of the features of Netvibes allows one to add a widget to a page that searches multiple podcast directories at once - ODEO, iTunes, Podemus (a French directory) and Pluggd.

Update: With the release of Firefox v2.0 this week, you can now customize your feed subscription engine. Netvibes is not one of the choices, but this post on the Netvibes blog shows you how to set it up.

Especially love the RSS reader. I have tried Google’s and Bloglines and a few Dashboard/Konfabulator widgets, but none of them can match what Netvibes is doing.

GET NETVIBES

I also like getting updates on both my gMail accounts right there, and how they let me discover the IceRocket search engine, which gives you thumbnails and preview panes for websites inside the search engine (but I think it is a Google mashup).