Popular photo-sharing social network Flickr was launched back in February 2004 by a Vancouver-based company Ludicorp. It took one year for Yahoo to acquire Flickr, and among the company’s many acquisitions, Flickr definitely stands as one of the most successful.
Being six years old (nearly the same age as Facebook) makes Flickr almost an old guy on the Internet, as many other social networks (Bebo, hi5) have risen and fallen within that timespan. Although its traffic lately isn’t growing as it used to, it’s still doing well, with users sharing billions of photos there. We wish you a very happy birthday, Flickr!
Want to be the first to know what companies will be the next household name? BusinessWeek has started a section on its webpage that will keep track of promising start-ups that might see the limelight. Flip through the slide show for a look at all the profiles. You can also make a suggestion of a new company worth profiling and send it in to BusinessWeek.
Welcome to America’s Most Promising Startups, an ongoing series profiling new companies from across the country that embody the creativity and resiliency common among today’s entrepreneurs. Based on suggestions from our readers and staffers, we’ll be adding more profiles on a regular basis, so check back often. Our goal is to showcase promising companies before they become household names.
As the year draws to a close, what does 2010 hold for social media and the web? While web innovation is unpredictable, some clear trends are emerging.
Among the good bets for 2010 online: Real-time, Content Curation, Cloud Computing, Convergence Continues (eBooks are the exception), Social Gaming and more.
This week’s CNN column looks at 10 of the big themes that will shape the next year on the web.
We knew it was inevitable, and now it’s here: Google has just launched real-time search integrated into search results pages.
Basically it means that Google will display information from news sites, blogs and platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, as soon as it is published. It works on mobile too, at least for now only @ iPhone and Android [Source].
Here’s a video demo from Google on real-time search:
Companies that create applications for Twitter are diversifying, preparing for a day when they may no longer be needed.
With a $1 billion valuation, plenty of money in the bank, and new deals with Google and Microsoft, Twitter could easily roll out applications to compete with its developers.
Google and Microsoft get the chance to mine the wealth of data—keywords, trends, links—rising and falling across Twitter in real time, a boon for both companies’ advertising networks. And Twitter’s 50 million users, who send messages that are up to 140 characters long, can now better monitor the company they’re keeping and tweet appropriately [Source].
Google is using its domination of search advertising to confront Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and others. It can’t possibly succeed everywhere at once. Or can it?
In just 11 years, Google has evolved from a pair of graduate students noodling in a garage to what may be the most disruptive force the business world has ever seen. Its meteoric rise has been driven by its mastery of technology and business strategy.
With a 71 percent share of the U.S. search market under its command, Google is looking for a way to maintain its incredible rate of growth [Source].
Already wrote about the real-time web at this post. Now Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s search service are preparing real-time searches of Twitter and Facebook posts. Targeted ads could follow.
Nonetheless, in a bid to stay relevant in the face of these shifts, Google and Microsoft said on 21 October that they will incorporate information culled from social media sites into search pages. Microsoft said its Bing search engine will let users search for Twitter posts known as tweets and, later, for status updates posted to Facebook pages. The same day, Google said it too will include Twitter updates in search results and that it will begin offering a social search tool that delivers information posted by a searcher’s friends on social sites [Source]. We live in again in exciting times: Real-Time web. =)
That’s how big Google’s vision is for its Wave social-networking/search service, which will have apps created by independent developers who sell them at a Google app store.
Google has big plans for Google Wave, its new online communication service—and they won’t all come from Google.
Combining instant messaging, e-mail, and real-time collaboration, Wave is an early form of so-called real-time communication designed to make it easier for people to work together or interact socially over the Internet. Google started letting developers tinker with Wave at midyear and then introduced the tool on a trial basis to about 100,000 invited users starting on Sept. 30. Invitations were such a hot commodity that they were being sold on eBay (EBAY). For Google the hope is that Wave, once it’s more widely available, will replace competing communications services such as e-mail, instant messaging, and possibly even social networks such as Facebook [Source].
Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service Mint. Intuit’s purchase of Mint.com was a big win for Mint CEO Aaron Patzer and the rest of the 38-person staff he assembled to run the personal finance Web site.
Yet the $170 million acquisition also vindicated a new breed of early-stage investor that is betting aggressively on startups while big-name venture capital firms conserve capital and shy away from risk. These so-called super angels are trying to reinvigorate venture capital by taking it back to its roots, when firms were smaller, nimbler, and more adept at helping to build companies from the ground up [Source] [Source].
The world’s largest social networking site just got bigger with the announcement it has 300 million active monthly users from around the globe [Source] and [Source].
Popular photo-sharing social network Flickr was launched back in February 2004 by a Vancouver-based company Ludicorp. It took one year for Yahoo to acquire Flickr, and among the company’s many acquisitions, Flickr definitely stands as one of the most successful.
Want to be the first to know what companies will be the next household name? BusinessWeek has started a section on its webpage that will keep track of promising start-ups that might see the limelight. Flip through 
As the year draws to a close, what does 2010 hold for social media and the web? While web innovation is unpredictable, some clear trends are emerging.
We knew it was inevitable, and now it’s here: Google has just launched 
Companies that create applications for Twitter are diversifying, preparing for a day when they may no longer be needed. 
Google is using its domination of search advertising to confront Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and others. It can’t possibly succeed everywhere at once. Or can it? 
Already wrote about the 
That’s how big Google’s vision is for its Wave social-networking/search service, which will have apps created by independent developers who sell them at a Google app store.
Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service 
The world’s largest social networking site just got bigger with the announcement it has 300 million active monthly users from around the globe [
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