Web Development

10 Most Successful Web 2.0 Startups To Date

Saved from rev2.org

I??™ve had an idea for this kind of a list for months now, but I guess I??™ve been waiting until we have clear, agreed, and well-defined players rather than something we insiders consider successful but is really unknown to the rest of the world.

The list was narrowed down from a selection of 20 startups, and the criteria were as simple as (a) they had to be a new startup ??” Valley-based or not, but most are anyway, and (b) they had to be looked at as a Web 2.0 company (i.e. no eBay or Yahoo! or Craigslist), which I think we??™ll all agree on. I??™ve tried to diversify the list with startups doing all kinds of things, and while this is a list of the ???most successful,??™ please note that the startups in here are in no way the ???best.??™ They??™re simply used by the most people, have happy investors behind them, and are looking toward a bright future.

(1) MySpace

Launched: July 2003
Founded by: Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe
Type: Social Network
Targeted Audience: 16 - 24 (teens, young adults)
Approximate Users: 150 million (100 million as of August 2006; growing at around 200,000 registrations per day)
Approximate Pageviews: 40 billion per month (as of March 2007)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Rupert Murdoch??™s Fox Interactive Media in July 2005 for $580 million

(2) YouTube

Launched: February 2005
Founded by: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim
Type: Video Sharing
Targeted Audience: 16 - 40 (teens, adults)
Approximate Users: Unknown
Approximate Pageviews: 4 billion per month (as of July 2006, serving 100 million videos per day)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Google in October 2006 for $1.6 billion

(3) Facebook

Launched: February 2004
Founded by: Mark Zuckerberg
Type: Social Network
Targeted Audience: 20 - 25 (college students), this is changing since they have opened up
Approximate Users: 18 million (as of February 2007)
Approximate Pageviews: 22 billion per month (as of December 2006)
Acquisition/Valuation: Rejected $1 billion offer from Yahoo! in September 2006, asking for $2 billion

(4) Wikipedia

Launched: January 2001
Founded by: Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
Type: Wiki-based Encyclopedia
Targeted Audience: 10 - 80 (general)
Approximate Users: 50,000 active users (as of January 2006)
Approximate Pageviews: 6 billion per month (as of February 2007)
Acquisition/Valuation: Non-profit, has raised over $3 million in donations

(5) Bebo

Launched: January 2005
Founded by: Michael Birch and Xochi Birch
Type: Social Network
Targeted Audience: 16 - 24 (teens, young adults)
Approximate Users: 24 million (as of May 2006)
Approximate Pageviews: 4 billion per month (as of October 2006)
Acquisition/Valuation: Rejected $500 million offer from British Telecom Group, asking for $1 billion

(6) Digg

Launched: November 2004
Founded by: Kevin Rose
Type: Social Content Bookmarking/Voting
Targeted Audience: 16 - 30 (teens, adults; technology-savvy)
Approximate Users: 1 million
Approximate Pageviews: 118 million per month (as of 2006)
Acquisition/Valuation: Rumored to have been in negotiations with Fox Interactive/Newscorp, asking for $150 million

(7) Flickr

Launched: February 2004
Founded by: Ludicorp
Type: Photo Sharing
Targeted Audience: 16 - 80 (general)
Approximate Users: 1.5 million (as of November 2005)
Approximate Pageviews: Unknown
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Yahoo! in March 2005 for an undisclosed price estimated in the lower tens of millions.

(8) Netvibes

Launched: September 2005
Founded by: Tariq Krim
Type: AJAX-based Startpage
Targeted Audience: 20 - 40 (adults; technology-savvy)Has
Approximate Users: 7 million (as of February 2007)
Approximate Pageviews: N/A
Acquisition/Valuation: Has received around $20 million of venture capital to date; no acquisition rumors or link-ups of any kind.

(9) Del.icio.us

Launched: Late 2003
Founded by: Joshua Schachter
Type: Social Bookmarking
Targeted Audience: 20 - 40 (adults; technology-savvy)
Approximate Users: 1 million (as of September 2006)
Approximate Pageviews: 4 million (peak, as of August 2006)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Yahoo! in December 2005 for estimated $30 - $40 million

(10) Meebo

Launched: September 2005
Founded by: Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry
Type: AJAX-based Instant Messaging
Targeted Audience: 13 - 40 (teens, adults)
Approximate Users: 500,000 users (as of October 2006)
Approximate Pageviews: N/A
Acquisition/Valuation: Has received around $12 million of venture capital to date; no acquisition rumors or linkups.