Don’t know if you guys have heard about it yet, but there’s a new site out there that would like to be your homepage. It’s called NetVibes. It’s similar to what Google is trying to do with its personalized homepage feature and Microsoft is trying to do with its Start.com service. The difference between this and those is that those are backed by huge corporations and this is a start-up company founded by two people in Paris.

For those who don’t know, NetVibes is an example of what everyone is calling Web 2.0, which, for us end-users who could care less about the inner workings of things such Asynchronous Javascript And XML, essentially means not having to reload pages in order to see things change. Web 2.0 is about a lot of really good shit, but it comes down to finally experiencing the dynamic Web and leaving behind the static pain in the ass that we have had to deal with for the last 13 years.

At NetVibes, this means dragging and dropping things on the page without having to reload. While this might not sound exciting to the layperson, once you actually use it, you start to understand why Web junkies can hardly talk about anything else these days.

But the thing that really gets me excited about the NetVibes thing is its reception. The site launched on Thursday, but you didn’t hear about it, did you? It wasn’t on the news. There was nothing in the NY Times about it. There was no “NetVibes Opens” scrolling under Wolf Blitzer’s face on CNN. It just wasn’t an “event.” But between Thursday and Monday, according to the stats published on their company blog, they’ve had 29,699 people visit the site.

29,699 people! In five days!

That’s the power of the Web.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. NetVibes is just a homepage thing, right? So what does it matter?

What matters is that two people started this thing. Two people! Imagine what you and a couple of your friends can do. Think a homepage is a silly thing to get worked up about? Fine. Then come up with something of your own and create it. If it’s good, people will respond.

Sure, it’s always been that way. Even Microsoft had to start as an idea in Bill Gates’ head, right? But the difference now is the turnaround time. Microsoft took years to reach its audience. NetVibes took five days. Things have always been possible. But they are more possible now.

And it’s not like you need an all-sweeping idea to start things off. You just need to pick one thing and do it really well. You know the social bookmark service del.icio.us that I’m always pointing to and which is part of the backbone of the Fluid Imagination linkblog? It was created by one dude, Joshua Schacter, who created it to manage his own bookmarks. After a while, he figured that some other people might like it. The service now has something like 200,000 registered users. The strange thing? He still holds down a full-time job on top of running del.icio.us (randsinrepose has a nice interview with Josh, giving the whole story of del.icio.us’ creation).

Again, you might say, “What’s the big deal? It’s only a service for storing and sharing bookmarks?”

Imagine for a moment that Josh has a really good idea (whatever that means to you). He now has an audience of (at least) 200,000 people who are going to take time out of their day to listen to him. That’s power. And it’s power he earned. It didn’t come from having a rich daddy. Or from having super-human athletic skills. Or from being extra pretty. It came from something he created. That’s the kind of power I can get behind.

NetVibes reached about 30,000 people in five days. It’s that type of thing that is bringing 1998-level excitement back to the Internet. Hopefully, Wall Street won’t screw things up this time by being insane. The fact that NetVibes launched without an IPO makes me think that, this time, we just might get it right.

—
[Technorati Tags: netvibes | web 2.0 | buzz | del.icio.us ]