From last few days  I  am thinking  about web services,but I am not getting the whole data which is clear to we people but not to the rest of the world.The list was shortlisted from a selection of 20 startups, and there is a very simple selecting criteria (a)they had to be looked at as a Web 2.0 company (b)they had to be a new startup.
I’ve tried to find out the list list of the ‘most successful’ startups doing all kinds of things, and in no way this list of startups is best,these are simply used by the most people.
Wikipedia

Launched: January 2001
Founded by: Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
Type: Wiki-based Encyclopedia
Targeted Audience: 10 – 80 (general)
Acquisition/Valuation: Non-profit, has raised over $3 million in donations
YouTube

Launched: February 2005
Founded by: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim
Type: Video Sharing
Targeted Audience: 16 – 40 (teens, adults)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Google in October 2006 for $1.6 billion


Digg

Launched: November 2004
Founded by: Kevin Rose
Type: Social Content Bookmarking/Voting
Targeted Audience: 16 – 30 (teens, adults; technology-savvy)
Acquisition/Valuation: Rumored to have been in negotiations with Fox Interactive/Newscorp, asking for $150 million
Del.icio.us

Launched: Late 2003
Founded by: Joshua Schachter
Type: Social Bookmarking
Targeted Audience: 20 – 40 (adults; technology-savvy)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Yahoo! in December 2005 for estimated $30 – $40 million
MySpace

Launched: July 2003
Founded by: Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe
Type: Social Network
Targeted Audience: 16 – 24 (teens, young adults)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Interactive Media in July 2005 for $580 million
Flickr

Launched: February 2004
Founded by: Ludicorp
Type: Photo Sharing
Targeted Audience: 16 – 80 (general)
Acquisition/Valuation: Bought by Yahoo! in March 2005 for an undisclosed price estimated in the lower tens of millions.
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
Acquisition/Valuation: Rejected $1 billion offer from Yahoo! in September 2006, asking for $2 billion
Netvibes

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

Launched: January 2005
Founded by: Michael Birch and Xochi Birch
Type: Social Network
Targeted Audience: 16 – 24 (teens, young adults)
Acquisition/Valuation: Rejected $500 million offer from British Telecom Group, asking for $1 billion
Meebo

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

Image via Wikipedia

We all know that the internet, a.k.a. the World Wide Web, was once owned and utilized only by government officials, scientists, professors of universities, and others who had a knack at using the Cyber-world for important purposes. These involved business, scientific discoveries, reports, etc. But now with the growing development of the World Wide Web, we’re seeing a whole new virtual arena where normal regular people can use all kinds of online applications and integrating them with different aspects of human life such as social networking or making money online. This transition or innovation is known as web 2.0 and is coined by O’Reilley Media back in 2003 to refer to sites and services that utilize the internet as their medium or platform.

Web 2.0 has basically changed the way we once used the internet. People can finally share their interests and even earn more money just by setting up a website. By using all kinds of online applications and internet tools, and eventually become an online community that shares the same interests and even hold transactions with one another, the internet has obviously become our virtual playground. You can also see the big change through the birth of new terms associated with web 1.0 applications, which have no empowered social networking and the growth of active online communities. Lastly, for those leaning towards the internet marketing industry, harnessing the powers of web 2.0 have broaden their scope in terms of target audience, effective increase of traffic, advertising, and the like.

TheInternet Movie Database(IMDB) is a massive, extremely popular website detailing all aspects of many movies and television shows, has finally added what the site has curiously been missing all along: video footage of full-length movies and TV show.

There are a few things that I really like about the new service. While many videos are slapped up on the site using an embeddable player from Hulu, IMDB is the first site I’ve seen that lets you watch these embedded videos in full screen. And it’s nice being able to find videos right next to the images and other media that pop up when you’re searching for information about a movie or TV show.

For years, the Internet Movie Database has been the go-to spot for information about movies, TV shows, actors, directors, and all sorts of other information related to the entertainment industry. But over the last few years as online video started to take over the web, there was one thing conspicuously absent from IMDB: video. Now that’s all changed, as IMDB’s parent comkpany Amazon has rolled out a major update which lets users watch over 6,000 videos from sources like Hulu, CBS, and independent filmmakers.

The Amazon-owned site will now offer 6,000 movies and TV shows free of charge from Hulu, CBS, Sony Pictures Television, and hundreds of independent filmmakers. The content will rotate (much as it does on Hulu), depending on the content-owners’ wishes. IMDB will host and stream some of the video itself, but appears to be using embeddable players from Hulu and CBS where possible.

“IMDb’s mission has always been to be the world’s most comprehensive, user-friendly destination for all movie, TV and celebrity-related information, products and services,” said Col Needham, founder and managing director of IMDB, adding that “We’re excited to offer our users a simple online experience to watch full-length movies and TV episodes for free […] Our goal is to show our users every movie and TV show on the internet for free.”

The site’s interface is also a letdown when it comes to sorting through items with multiple pieces of content, like a television show. After visiting the webpage for Arrested Development (easily one of the best shows in recent memory), I found that episodes were listed out of order with poor descriptions.

And figuring out what you can actually watch will likely confuse many first time visitors. After browsing to the webpage for “Superman”, I was presented with a greyed-out “Watch It” button, which was accompanied by a link to Amazon’s Video On Demand service. Unsure of why I couldn’t click “Watch It”, I promptly looked to see if I was missing a codec or needed to sign into the site. Turns out this is just a bad design choice on IMDB’s part – if you can watch a video the button will be gold, you can’t watch it if it’s grey (why not just say “You can’t watch this here”?).

For now, the service is only available in the United States, as there are several licensing issues that must be handled. IMDB’s visitors will be able to watch classic shows such as Charlie’s Angels, Star Trek, Bewitched and Beverly Hills 90210. Also, new releases like Knight Rider and 30 Rock will be available before their debut on television.

The move should have been considered a very long time ago, as it provides huge financial possibilities, but as the saying goes, it is never too late to do the right thing. From this point on it all depends on how Amazon will promote the service and also on the quality of its content.

IMDB is one of my favorite sites on the web – I’ve spent countless hours browsing through movie trivia, forums, and top 100 lists. It’s nice to see that the database is finally incorporating video, but it could be doing so much more than links to Hulu embeds. Instead of including video as footnotes to database pages, the IMDB should create a consumer-friendly content portal, leveraging its database to serve as a powerful recommendation and review engine.