Hot New Web 2.0 Startups

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Below is a list of the latest hot new Web 2.0 startups (Courtesy Business 2.0) that were launched within the last two years. Many of these Web 2.0 startups are still beta testing or very recently launched. Several of these Web 2.0 startups are first-movers with unique audiences. Others are emulators. The majority of these startups have received startup funding from both VC firms or angel investors. They run the gamut from social networking communities to online advertising marketplaces.

Web 2.0 is experiencing explosive growth and investors are having no problems opening their checkbooks. Again, I am not completely sold on several of these Web 2.0 startups. The segment that concerns me the most are those related to social networking communities. Too many trying to do something similar to YouTube and MySpace or some variation of it. I am sure that you will see some kind of a shakeout and the survivors will be those that have developed the most efficient business model and found the right audience.

Click their logos to view their websites.

Website	Company/Location	What it is	Description

	Stumbleupon (San Francisco, CA)	Social Search Engine	StumbleUpon has 2 million registered users drawn by its knack for finding websites that match their interests and those of others with similar tastes as they "stumble" around the Net.

	Slide.com (San Francisco, CA)	Social Media	Slide has developed customizable and easily assembled slide shows of photos that can be embedded in a blog or a MySpace page, sent out in an RSS feed, and streamed to a desktop as a screensaver.

	Bebo.com (San Francisco, CA)	Social Media	Bebo has built a social network, more than 30 million members strong, that keeps users' pages private but still allows them to share things like video and drawings made on an online whiteboard.

	Meebo.com (Mountain View, CA)	Social Messaging	Meebo lets users manage multiple instant-messaging services from one site. Meebo's killer app is a widget that places an IM window on your blog or webpage. Launched Sep 2005 and claims 80 million IMs per month.

	Wikia.com (San Mateo, CA)	Social Community	Wikia operates a hosting service for ad-supported community sites that use the same software and collaborative content model that made Wikipedia a Web phenomenon. Launched in 2004, Wikia communities range from fans of 24 to politics junkies. Wikia is also working on an open-source, user-generated search engine.

	Joost.com (Luxembourg)	Web Television	Joost, currently in beta-test, launched byJanus Friis and Niklas Zenstrom, the founders of Skype, is a new way of watching broadcast-quality TV on the internet, using peer-to-peer technology to stream programs to your desktop.

	Dabbles (Berkeley, CA)	Social Media	Dabble has designed a tool for organizing videos into play lists of favorites. Users share them across the network, so, say, food lovers can dabble in one another's video collections.

	Metacafe (Palo Alto, CA)	Social Media	Metacafe's service ranks uploaded videos by popularity and feedback from a community of 17 million monthly visitors - and pays the creators for the success of their work. The amateurs get $100 after 20,000 viewings and $5 for every 1,000 subsequent views. Since September, Metacafe has paid a total of $250,000 to 200 contributors.

	Vision3 (San Francisco, CA)	Social Media	Revision 3 is a production studio for geek-oriented online shows. Started by Digg founder Kevin Rose and its CEO, Jay Adelson, Revision3 sells sponsorships to companies like Go Daddy, Microsoft, and Sony for as much as $10,000 per episode.

	Blip.tv (New York City, NY)	Web Television	Blip.tv has built a platform for syndicating serialized online shows such as Starring Amanda Congdon and TreeHugger TV. Blip provides producers with software, ads, and distribution to websites and blogs. A deal is already signed with Web TV service Akimbo, which lets producers send their videos to TV sets.

	Fon.com (Madrid, Spain)	Mobile Social Community	Fon, a Spanish company, is building a global community of Wifi hotspots or FONSpots. Fon's goal is to build the largest WiFi community in the world. Members share their wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever they find another Fonero’s Access Point.

	loopt (Palo Alto, CA)	Mobile Social Community	loopt is a Palo Alto, California based startup that has built a revolutionary "social mapping" service to change the way people use mobile phones to keep in touch with their friends. loopt uses GPS (and other location technology) to show you where your friends are by automatically updating maps on your mobile handset.

	Mobio (Cupertino, CA)	Mobile Social Community	Mobio offers mobile-phone mashups and widgets that figure out where you are and serve up on-the-go services like movie listings. Other widgets will book a cab or a seat at a restaurant.

	Tiny Pictures (San Francisco, CA)	Mobile Social Community	It's Flickr on the fly. Tiny's Radar service lets you snap photos with cell phones and send them to friends, who can both access and comment on the shots. Radar will be a built-in application on some devices made by Danger, creator of T-Mobile's Sidekick.

	SoonR (Campbell, CA)	Mobile Social Community	SoonR allows you to use your mobile phone to pull up and search data on your desktop - everything from Word docs to Photoshop files.

	Turn.com (San Mateo, CA)	Online Advertising Marketplace	Turn.com is offering online advertisers something many have craved for years: precise, automated ad targeting combined with a system that requires them to pay only for specific desired results. Call it Pay-Per-Play online advertising marketplace.

	ADiFY (San Bruno, CA)	Online Advertising Marketplace	Adify is an online marketplace for highly targeted ads. Businesses can sell ad space directly to advertisers; advertisers can target specific market niches while Adify handles the back-office work.

	AdMob (San Mateo, CA)	Mobile Advertising Marketplace	AdMob offers a place to buy ads for delivery to cell phones. That market is set to explode, and AdMob - which says it has sent out nearly a billion ads in less than a year - is poised to become its middleman of choice.

	SpotRunner (Los Angeles, CA)	Television Spot Marketplace	SpotRunner is a one-stop online shop for low-cost 30-second TV ads. Local businesses can browse a library of premade spots and personalize them for airing in their local markets.

	VITrue (Atlanta, GA)	Online Advertising Community	ViTrue's platform lets corporate customers solicit, edit, and upload user-generated videos that promote their products. With companies like General Motors tapping the YouTube generation to virally market their wares, ViTrue is in a sweet spot.

	SuccessFactors (San Mateo, CA)	On-Demand Corporate Service Web Tools	SuccessFactors, a profitable five-year-old startup in San Mateo, Calif., takes in an estimated $100 million in annual revenue by selling a suite of simple Web-based tools that automate important but previously paper-driven management chores - performance reviews, succession planning, and compensation.

	Janrain (Portland, OR)	Internet-Scale Identity Service	JanRain has developed a single sign-on service for multiple passwords that lets people hop freely from site to site. Business demand for JanRain's services is expected to grow as Web 2.0 entertainment and social-networking sites proliferate.

	Logoworks (Linden, UT)	Online Logo Design	Logoworks automates the design of logos, business cards, and stationery. Proprietary software helps Logoworks streamline the process and charge less than old-line competitors.

	ReardenCommerce (Foster City, CA)	Web-Based Virtual Personal Assistant	Rearden Commerce sells a Web-based "virtual personal assistant" application that smoothly integrates hotel and flight reservations, meetings, and other events into your daily agenda. Some 150 companies and 500,000 employees use Rearden's software.

	SimulScribe (New York City, NY)	Mobile Text Messaging	SimulScribe transcribes voice-mail messages and shoots them to your mobile device as text or e-mail messages. Targeting corporate customers, SimulScribe will integrate the service into company voicemail systems.