The Next Net 25
A new Web revolution is picking up steam, and the next Google or Microsoft could emerge from the companies that are in the vanguard.
By Erick Schonfeld, Om Malik, and Michael V. Copeland

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - Things are really crackling in Silicon Valley these days. There's the frenzied startup action, the rising rivers of VC cash, even the occasional bubble-icious long-term stock prediction (Google $2,000, anyone?).

(See the list and gallery: The Next Net 25)

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BUSINESS 2.0: THE NEXT NET 25
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Which company do you think could be the next Google?
  YouTube, video sharing site
  Technorati, blog search engine
  SIPphone, Internet phone software
  JotSpot, wikis and online spreadsheets
  Six Apart, blogging tools
or View results

There's so much happening that the buzzword recently employed to try to encapsulate the era -- "Web 2.0" -- now seems hopelessly inadequate, defined and redefined into near meaninglessness by squadrons of aspiring entrepreneurs, marketers, and other fortune hunters.

So it seems a particularly useful moment to wave away the smoke and home in on what's really core. Don't be distracted by the Valley's hype-o-meter pushing toward the red: There's something very real -- and very powerful -- afoot.

Driven by ubiquitous broadband, cheap hardware, and open-source software, the Web is mutating into a radically different beast than it has been. And that is leading to the creation of entirely new kinds of companies, new business models, and oceans of new opportunity.

We are in the early stages of what might be better thought of as the Next Net. The Next Net will encompass all digital devices, from PC to cell phone to television. Its defining characteristics include the ability to interact instantaneously with any of the more than 1 billion Web users across the globe -- not by, say, instant messaging, but by evolving instant-voice-messaging and instant-video-messaging apps that will make today's e-mail and IM seem crude.

The Next Net is deeply collaborative: People from across the planet can work together on the same task, and products or tools can be rapidly tweaked and improved by the collective wisdom of the entire online world.

The new era is also creating a realm of endless mix and match: Anyone with a browser can access vast stores of information, mash it up, and serve it in new ways, to a few people or a few hundred million.

Most striking, the Next Net creates endless possibilities for entrepreneurs and established players alike to take advantage of the Web's new power. They are building on the success of early standard-bearers -- Flickr, MySpace, Wikipedia -- but also moving beyond those pioneers in creative and fascinating ways.

In the pages that follow, we identify 25 companies, in five Next Net categories, whose approaches help illuminate where the Web is headed and where the opportunities lie. Most are startups, a lot of them with less than 10 full-time employees. Few are currently making money, and it's a given that many will fail. But it's equally likely that somewhere within this group lurks the next Google or Microsoft or Yahoo -- or at least something that those giants will soon pay a pretty penny to have.

See the full list and photo gallery: The Next Net 25 Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.