Not only did Netvibes today announce that they received $15 million in funding, but, according to Siliconbeat.com, they have now hit more than 5 million users. I take this as a sign that there is definitely a market out there for web 2.0 homepages. Here is mashable.com’s Pete Cashmore’s take on this:
Netvibes, the popular ajax startpage, just announced a massive funding round of $15 million - what’s more, they now claim to have 5 million users. That’s a pretty clear sign that Netvibes is moving beyond the early adopter crowd, and now has mainstream appeal. This round was led by Accel Partners, and included Index Ventures.
I think I have to slightly disagree with this as of now, though. I think the early adopter crowd might be a bit larger than Pete assumes here. 5 million users is a lot, no doubt, but there are a lot of early adopters out there. As a test, I asked eight of my friends who all work in the tech industry (though on the hardware side), and one of them knew about Netvibes. I think for Netvibes, the struggle will come now, when it will actually have to put those 15 million to a test and indeed broaden its appeal. But hey, they definitely have me setting using them as my homepage and as my on-the-go RSS reader.
By the way, to everybody who is building an AJAX homepage - if you don’t build an RSS reader (one that shows the full text of the RSS feed) right into the app, stop what you are doing, have a drink, and start a new project. I have tried other homepages and always went back to Netvibes because the build in RSS client.
Definition of users? It’s surely not the number of signups or registrations… so I would be careful with throwing around numbers…