OK, we get it. Web 2.0 is a big deal.
But what about the Web 2.0 companies that haven't made the cover of a magazine?
This is their week. The Chronicle today highlights some of the startups from this hot sector of the tech world -- companies that fulfill the Web 2.0
philosophy of community, sharing and user-created content, and that fit in the
modern gestalt with things like video, music and digital photos.
The only real requirement is that the companies are something you probably haven't heard of before. And if you have, consider yourself hip. Debbie Landa,
chief executive officer of the IBDNetwork, which runs the Under the Radar
conference, says, "I'm definitely jaded because I know most of these really
well."
This survey is far from scientific. Many intriguing companies did not make the list, including FareCast, which tells you when the airline ticket you want
to buy is likely to go up or down in price, and Vyew, a utility (like Google's
Writely) that lets you collaborate with someone online, and -- well, a list
like that might never end.
In the first quarter of this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, 134 Web 2.0 companies received $869 million in venture funding, on pace to beat
the $3 billion that 465 firms raked in last year. And that's just the companies
taking funding. Much of Web 2.0's appeal is that engineers can start firms in
their basements.
So next year, check those magazine covers for the companies on The Chronicle's list. These guys are growing.
StumbleUpon
Web address: www.stumbleupon.com
Where they are: San Francisco
What they do: A free, downloadable browser button that lets people rate and recommend random Web sites to their friends as they "stumble" around the
Internet.
The skinny: Three guys from Calgary, Alberta, developed the software and moved to San Francisco this year. They have $2 million in funding from some big
Net names, including Lotus founder Mitch Kapor, Google board member Ram Shriram
and famed angel Ron Conway.
The competition: Anyone who leads a Net surfer to something interesting. One could say competitors range from the news-ranking site Digg, Netscape and
other news sites built on user ratings, to Google and Yahoo and other search
giants.
Imeem
Web address: www.imeem.com
Where they are: Palo Alto
What they do: Users participate by joining online communities, called meems, or creating private meems where they can share music, video, photos,
comments and blogs with their friends. It also rolls in instant messaging.
The skinny: Founder Jan Jannick came from the original Napster, as did many of Napster's engineers. In three months, its audience has grown from
50,000 to 800,000, though still less than the millions that congregate on
MySpace.
The competition: It faces an uphill battle against other social networking and online community sites, such as the original and newly cash-infused
Friendster, Tagworld, Bebo and South Korea's Cyworld. And of course the biggest
and baddest of them all, MySpace and Facebook.
Slide
Web address: www.slide.com
Where they are: San Francisco
What they do: It's a toolbar that sits on your desktop as photos slide by, fed from whatever site you fancy -- whether it's your friends' Flickr feeds,
or things you want to buy on eBay.
The skinny: Founded by Max Levchin, who struck it rich in his 20s when he co-founded PayPal and sold it to eBay, Slide attempts to organize the sprawling
information of the Internet. It's a neat gadget but a crowded field.
Net-watchers say Levchin's work ethic, to say nothing of his stellar track
record and computing expertise, may give him an edge.
The competition: RockYou, which purportedly has a larger following, and FilmLoop, which has had more exposure.
Meebo
Web address: www.meebo.com
Where they are: San Francisco
What they do: Instead of downloading popular instant messaging services such as Yahoo Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger, Meebo lets you access your
buddy list and IM all you want from its Web site.
The skinny: Backers include Sequoia Capital, the same folks that invested in Google, PayPal and YouTube.
The competition: Instant messaging services from AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype and others, as well as copycats such as KoolIM.
popURLs
Web address: www.popurls.com
Where they are: Austria
What they do: Popurls aggregates content from the Web's most popular social sites, so you can see in one fell swoop the hottest stories from Digg,
the most popular photos from Flickr, the latest bookmarks on Del.icio.us, the
most watched videos from YouTube, and other sites.
The skinny: Thomas Marban, who produced the site, says on his blog that he started it in March, and is now in the top 50 sites bookmarked on Del.icio.us.
The competition: NetVibes, founded by some Parisians, does something similar, including even your Google e-mail and allowing you to add other sites
to the tracker. Microsoft and other tech giants have similar products in the
works.
Dabble
Web address: www.dabble.com
Where they are: Berkeley
What they do: A TV Guide for Internet video, the site lets users tag and rate clips found throughout the Web. Viewers form communities based on their
interests, helping sort the Web's top videos on such topics as baking a dessert
and Japanese animation.
The skinny: Even before the company's premiere, Dabble Chief Executive Officer Mary Hodder was quoted in Newsweek and featured in a series of
technology conferences. Now it must prove that it can easily help users find
the gems without wading through all the junk on the Internet.
The competition: Though it counts YouTube and other online video sites as its partners, it also competes with them for attention in this crowded and
popular space.
Pandora
Web address: www.pandora.com
Where they are: Oakland
What they do: Your personal Internet radio station.
The skinny: "I love Pandora. It's potential is limitless," said Kevin Smokler, a San Francisco author and blogger (and, he discloses, a friend of
Pandora founder Tim Westergren). "For what it does, it's pretty damn great.
Pandora creates a radio station based on collaborative filtering based on your
musical preferences. There's more music than you can categorize. It's pretty
great at exposing you to new things. It's the best window I have into the Web
2.0 idea that music is an endless garden of varietals you can just pluck from."
The competition: Many other Web sites are in the music game, from iTunes on down. "Pandora is cool, but Last.fm is more 'Web2.0' in the conventional
sense of participation," says Garrett Camp, one of the founders of StumbleUpon.
"Pandora is expert/algorithmically driven, whereas Last.fm is user driven."
Twitter
Web address: www.twitter.com
Where they are: San Francisco
What they do: A text messaging service that lets people send notes to groups. "You can send something to one number and it's distributed to other
people," said Ryan Freitas, an interaction designer at Adaptive Path in San
Francisco. "It tells people where you are. It's kind of like microblogging.
It's really a lot of fun. Part of Web 2.0 is that it's fun and it's a utility
combined with one another, so people enjoy what they're doing while they're
getting something out of it."
The skinny: Founded by the team behind Odeo, a podcasting company in San Francisco's South Park (which is led by Evan Williams, who founded Blogger and
sold it to Google).
The competition: Google bought Dodgeball, and many of the big cell phone companies are looking to add different messaging features to their menu of
services.
Eyespot
Web address: www.eyespot.com
Where they are: San Diego
What they do: Upload your video to Eyespot and use its tools to edit it and publish it on other sites.
The skinny: Eyespot ranks among the top video editing sites, according to trade publications and analysts, tapping into the popular pastime of mixing and
mashing video clips.
The competition: Software programs such as Apple's iMovie offer more whiz-bang features. Then there's Palo Alto's One True Media, which also makes
it simple for users to create and edit music montages of photos and videos on
the Web, then post them online. It also competes against San Francisco's
VideoEgg, another site that make it easy for users to edit and publish videos
on other sites.
Songbird
Web address: www.songbirdnest.com
Where they are: San Francisco
What they do: Download Songbird to play music from a host of sources.
The skinny: Called the potential "iTunes killer," Songbird was developed by the same people who created Winamp and the basis for Yahoo Music.
The competition: Apple's iTunes dominates the digital music sphere. And there are Web 2.0 sites that aren't the same as Songbird, but are also focused
on music, such as MOG, a new MySpace-like site that helps users find fellow
Black Sabbath aficionados, and La La, which also helps music lovers find those
with similar tastes and swap CDs. And did we mention iTunes?
Revver
Web address: www.revver.com
Where they are: Los Angeles
What they do: Online video site.
The skinny: Revver helped make the "Mentos guys" $30,000 in shared advertising revenues and made them famous to boot. Now the Mentos guys have
gotten an infusion of Mentos from the candymaker for future Mentos and Coke
experiments. Oh, and Revver has attracted more viewers.
The competition: Too many to count. At the top are YouTube and MySpace, not to mention JumpCut, Fliqz, Veoh, Blip.tv, Guba, GoFish, vMix, Vidilife,
iFilm, Panjea, Metacafe, Google, Yahoo, AOL and specialized sites such as
Break.com aimed at young men.
Carrie Bevill
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