Core reason for Netvibes users is :"What are you reading right now ?"

An interesting post on ReadWriteWeb blog make me think at the big difference between the so called Social Services (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace,...) and Netvibes.

One of the core reasons why people use Social Networks is the: "What are you doing right now ?" While the core reason for Netvibes users is something like: "What are you reading right now ?"

Even the new Ginger coming update will not change that, on the contrary.

The Most Important quality for a Netvibes' User ?

The most important quality for any Netvibes' User, no matter his(or her) age, social group, nationality, sexual orientation, political preferences,... is the ability to READ.

Yes, the pleasure, the necessity, the addiction to READ is the most important quality of any Netvibes user.

Every Universe I have visited is packed with Hundreds of feeds on every subject: WEB, TECH, SPORT, POLITICS, NEWS even GOSSIP and FASHION and DESIGN ....

But it is not an "EASY READING": the Netvibes' User has a lot to read, small text, often just the title of the feed will move him to go deeper. Subject are arranged in Tabs for similar content, but it is so easy to add a feed that feeds are filling tabs and tabs ...

Many speak about Over-Reading and they admit to have selected the Read All button. Because new feeds are always coming in and everyone of them could be "The news" you are waiting or not waiting...

It is also a solitary reading. You have your own feeds, disposed in your preferred way. You choose your own sources. Of course you can Tag, share, send and copy them to friends and family but the order, the choice will not be the same.

I have to go, 145 feeds have come while I was writing this ;)

WHO IS THE AVERAGE NETVIBES USER ?

The Average Netvibes user can be described today (before full upgrading to the Netvibes Ginger release with its new social approach) and accordingly to the poor public data available (my own poll) as:

• Mainly Male (87%)
• Aged 25-35 (47%)
• Working or studying in the Internet and/or Technology field (65%)
• Logining to Netvibes more than once daily (92%)
• Using Netvibes at Home (95%) and at Work (87%)
• Looking to be part of a “Wide Netvibes Community” (59%)
• Have more than 6 Tabs in their page (68%)
• Using widgets for :

1. Checking Emails (81%)
2. Reading Feeds (76%)
3. Checking Weather (66%)
4. Writing WebNote (58%)
5. Checking their Facebook account (53%)
6. For other uses (52%)

That result is consistent with my experience visiting other users' Public Universes already available: a vast majority of Males users, a lot of WEB 2.0/ TECH tabs, a lot of feeds and blogs of the Universes owners.

At the moment, in what is still a beta testing, quite a large group of users seems coming from France but that is not surprising as Netvibes is based in Paris.

But consider that for the month of January 2008, according to Compete.com, Netvibes had 600.000 unique visitors just for the US market with a total of 4,2 mln visits from unique visitors while competitors Protopage and Pageflakes are at a much lower level.

(To have a global view, Compete.com for the same period gives the following numbers for Myspace.com (67mln visitors with 1,021mln visits) and Facebook.com (31mln visitors with 352 milions visits)).

If Netvibes Team has better and more reliable data, we would be pleased to publish them ;)