26th
Some Background...
Web 2.0 is mainstream
Web 2.0 sites have been growing very rapidly, driven by popular sites such as YouTube, Flickr, and Wikipedia. In two short years since 2005, web 2.0 sites are gaining on the traditional top dogs, replacing the likes of AOL and eBay.
Alexa’s numbers are obviously biased toward the early adopters, but Hitwise would argue that those are the same people who brought more mainstream audience to the sites and drove their success.
The majority of value-adding activities (e.g. uploading videos for others to see) on sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia are performed by the early adopters accounting for less than 5% of their user base.
The Next Web 2.0 Giants
Seeing high percentages of early adopters on the above sites, Hitwise predicts that we should watch out for Yelp and StumbleUpon, among others, to grab the spotlight in the near future.
Though I don’t necessarily buy their list of next Web 2.0 giants, I can see why early adopters are important, and I would venture to say Yelp and StumbleUpon are compelling on many levels… I’ll tell you what I mean next time.
