My Favorite Portal: Protopage

I can’t think of the last time I set any site as my default “start page” (other than my own, or a local document of collected links and search fields). I was checking referral logs for bLaugh and noticed that Protopage and Netvibes kept popping up. I had visited each of them a while ago, but never really bothered to return to either – portal sites aren’t really my thing.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that our daily comic was toggled as a default widget on the primary Protopage tab! So, not only is Protopage the best designed AJAX portal, but it also has the best sense of humor. Okay, so maybe I’m a bit biased with the second claim – but it’s still incredibly thrilling to see just how many people have picked up on bLaugh since its launch a few months ago. blaugh.com“>Technorati reports that we’ve moved up to 831 (3,919 links from 1,353 blogs), though Hugh has been around substantially longer and has a insanely better numbers (and rightfully so).

Comic impressions are different than text impressions and/or video plays – just like most Web images (read: banners) have always been better played for branding purposes. For instance, there’s virtually no way of telling how many people read bLaugh on a daily basis through mass aggregation services like Protopage, Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. I can tell you one thing: I certainly welcome the use of our feed and/or API by any third-party. Brad and I have already been profitable with our madcapped adventure – without having to resort to venture comical capital. GoDaddy seems equally as happy! Move over, United Feature Syndicate and King Features Syndicate!

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