Five Internet Stars To Be
SAN FRANCISCO– Call it the Grand Summit of the Internet Digiterati. Or a geekfest worthy of Star Trek. The Web2.0 conference in San Francisco is an annual gathering of those hardy souls in Silicon Valley–and beyond–who are still hanging on to the notion that the dot-com era wasn't just a flash in the pan. The "2.0" refers to the next generation of Internet business, where static websites devoted to E-commerce (Amazon) and information (CNN.com) are giving way to a new, motley crew of interactive, user-generated Web experiences–social networking, video sharing, wikis, and blogs. Web dreamers can see there's money to be made on the Internet again: MySpace and YouTube, the two most popular Web2.0 companies in the United States, just sold for a combined $2 billion to Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp and Google, respectively. Silicon Valley's Internet darlings–Yahoo!, Google, and eBay–seem hungry for more. And venture capitalists are busy priming the pump, pouring more than $262 million into Web-based start-ups in the first half of this year, more than they invested in all of 2005.
So what's going to be the next MySpace? After spending a few days with the odd assemblage of Wall Street bankers, well-groomed venture capitalists, and bright-eyed tech entrepreneurs who came here looking for the Next Big Thing, U.S. News found five Internet companies poised to hit the big time.