Morgan Stanley offers a interesting slide (download here) sowhing the growth of web 2.0 sites. The slides are based on Alexa statistics. In favor of the right (green) sites, the left (red) sites dropped out of the TOP 10 list.

Social Networks and Social Media Services can now claim six of the top-10 slots.

According to Morgan Stanley, worldwide Internet usage has passed the 1 billion mark last year, and is estimated to hit more than 1.3 billion this year. The provided chart also shows the reach of Internet users by region.

During his speech at the Web 2.0 Summit, MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe and Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp CEO) announced that MySpace will open up the platform for third-party applications. This strategic move will position MySpace to a direct head-to-head competition with number one rival Facebook and its successful F8 application platform.

According to DeWolfe, Myspace will be opened up within the next few months, and that MySpace will set up a sandbox on the site as a staging system for new applications. Also, within the next days, MySpace will come up with a catalog for all current widgets on MySpace, making it easier to find and install them.

sevenval:

Jan Webering just finished a interesting speech about mobile 2.0 - advertising models, CPM and usage of the mobile internet. In Europe more than 30% of mobile phone users have used or use constantly the mobile internet. He praised iPhone and gPhone approach as a great support in the global development of mobile internet. Also the big & bold advertising of mobile internet (mainly by o2, vodafone and t-mobile) have raised the number of unique users. He outlined that a convergent solution is the key for media companies instead of stand-alone solutions for mobile and / or internet.

IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV):

interesting analyses regarding UGC (user generated content) Video Service: there is a 25% substitution risk for TV by UGC in the target group 20-50yrs

SMAVA:

up-to-date figures: 13.500 members with a total loan volume of 0,6 Mio EUR. The average loan amount is 4.000 EUR.

smava is very satisfied with the results so far. Their business model is a 1% “handling charge” for all successful loan contracts