Next Net

CNN analysis new Web2.0 trend, and provide with a listing of 25 hot companies in this sector:
... which is the top 30 if you take into account Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay and Microsoft.

These are US companies - it would be interesting to draw a similar report for Europe.

1) SOCIAL MEDIA: Digg
The site's links are picked by the readership, which has been doubling every three months; news items with the most votes make the homepage.
URL: http://www.digg.com/

2) SOCIAL MEDIA: Last.fm
Its software creates a personalized streaming radio station based on the digital music you already listen to, shares your playlist on the Web, and suggests music from other closely related playlists.
URL: http://www.last.fm

3) SOCIAL MEDIA: Newsvine
Readers vote and comment on stories but can also organize their own pages and write their own stories, for which they collect 90 percent of associated ad revenues.
URL: http://www.newsvine.com

4) SOCIAL MEDIA: Tagworld
With cutting-edge Web software enabling blogs, photo and music sharing, online dating, and more, members confront a rich smorgasbord of ways to interact, and everything can be tagged for easy searching.
URL: http://www.tagworld.com/

5) SOCIAL MEDIA: YouTube
This site lets people upload, watch, and share millions of video clips. All videos are converted to Flash (a Web-tailored format for graphics and video), making them easy to import into blogs or webpages.
URL: www.youtube.com

6) SOCIAL MEDIA: Yahoo!
Hoping to dominate social media, it's gobbling up promising startups (Del.icio.us, Flickr, Webjay) and experimenting with social search (My Web 2.0) that ranks results based on shared bookmarks and tags.
URL: www.yahoo.com

7) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Bloglines
The site collects blogs and news from all over the Web and presents it in one consistent, updated, multifeed mashup.
URL: www.bloglines.com

8) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Eurekster
This do-it-yourself search engine, or swicki, allows you to define sites you want to search, post the results on your blog or website, and get a cut of any search ads your audience clicks on.
URL: www.eurekster.com

9) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Simply Hired
It searches nearly 4.5 million listings on other job and corporate sites; subscribers receive an RSS feed or e-mail alert when a job that meets their parameters pops up.
URL: www.simplyhired.com

10) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Technorati
The site filters the almost 30 million existing blogs, shows how many other blogs link to a particular post, and can rank blogs by topic.
URL: www.technorati.com

11) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Trulia
Combining home listings from agents' websites with Google Maps, the site is becoming a hit in California and is expanding into other regions.
URL: www.trulia.com

12) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Wink
By searching user-generated tags on Next Net sites like Del.icio.us and Digg, Wink filters the Web so users can sort links into different collections and add their own tags and bookmarks.
URL: www.wink.com

13) MASHUPS AND FILTERS: Google
Already the ultimate Web filter through general search as well as blog, news, shopping, and now video search, it's encouraging mashups of Google Maps and search results, and offers a free RSS reader.
URL: www.google.com

14) THE NEW PHONE: Fonality
It sells a $1,000 box that allows a PC to use open-source software to mimic a PBX system that costs five times as much.
URL: www.fonality.com

15) THE NEW PHONE: SIPphone
Its Gizmo Project application allows free PC-to-PC calls, cheap PC-to-phone calls, and sound effects.
URL: www.sipphone.com

16) THE NEW PHONE: Iotum
With its app, users will be able to control where and when they receive voice or text data, routing calls to their phones, e-mail, or RSS feed-and blocking calls from, say, creditors.
URL: www.iotum.com

17) THE NEW PHONE: Vivox
Its service integrates voice, video, messaging, and social-networking capabilities into existing data networks.
URL: www.vivox.com

18) THE NEW PHONE: eBay (Skype)
The pioneer in the field and still the front-runner, Skype brings together free calling, IM, and video calling over the Web; eBay will use it to create deeper connections between buyers and sellers.
URL: www.ebay.com

19) THE WEBTOP: JotSpot
A pioneer of Web collaboration apps, a.k.a. wikis, it has unveiled its new Tracker application, which provides a powerful, highly collaborative online spreadsheet.
www.jotspot.com

20) THE WEBTOP: 30Boxes
This Web-based software allows families and groups to create private social networks, organize events, track schedules, and share photos; it may soon allow you to save phone numbers as hyperlinks and make calls by simply clicking on a link.
URL: www.30boxes.com

21) THE WEBTOP: 37Signals
Its Basecamp app, elegant and inexpensive, enables the creation, sharing, and tracking of to-do lists, files, performance milestones, and other key project metrics; related app Backpack, recently released, is a powerful online organizer for individuals.
URL: www.37signals.com

22) THE WEBTOP: Writely
It enables online creation of documents, opens them to collaboration by anyone anywhere, and simplifies publishing the end result on a website as a blog entry.
URL: www.writely.com

23) THE WEBTOP: Zimbra
Taking aim at Microsoft Outlook, its Ajax-based application can, among other things, bring up your calendar for any date your mouse encounters, launch Skype for any phone number, or retrieve a Google map for any address.
URL: www.zimbra.com

24) THE WEBTOP: Microsoft
By rolling out Windows Live, Office Live, and other Next Net-centric software, it hopes to grab a dominant -- if not monopolistic -- share of the webtop, which Bill Gates regards as a crucial strategic priority.
URL: www.live.com

25) UNDER THE HOOD: Brightcove
It's creating a video-distribution platform over the Web for producers large and small.
URL: www.brightcove.com

26) UNDER THE HOOD: Jigsaw
In exchange for their own contact lists, salespeople use this site to access a virtual Rolodex of managers at nearly 150,000 companies.
URL: www.Jigsaw.com

27) UNDER THE HOOD: SimpleFeed
By allowing RSS feeds to be customized to the desires of each recipient and tracked individually, the site makes such feeds a powerful marketing tool.
URL: www.SimpleFeed.com

28) UNDER THE HOOD: Salesforce.com
It pioneered Web-based software and is trying to become a marketplace and host for other online apps through its AppExchange.
URL: www.Salesforce.com

25) UNDER THE HOOD: Six Apart
The company helped kick off and sustain the Next Net with its Moveable Type blogging software and TypePad blogging service.
URL: www.SixApart .com

25) UNDER THE HOOD: Amazon
It's becoming a major Web platform by opening up its software protocols and encouraging anyone to use its catalog and other data; its Alexa Web crawler, which indexes the Net, can be used as the basis for other search engines, and its Mechanical Turk site solicits humans across cyberspace to do things that computers still can't do well, such as identify images or transcribe podcasts.
URL: www.amazon.com