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.

VentureBeat provides an interesting analysis of a survey released Sept. 17, 2007 by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young. (Press Release can be read here in PDF.)

SAN FRANCISCO (September 17, 2007)—It’s official: Web 2.0 has gone global. What was once an industry focused almost entirely in the San Francisco Bay area has expanded into new markets within the U.S. as well as in Europe and Israel, according to new data released today by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young LLP. The global research showed that investors directed US$464.2 million into 101 deals worldwide in the first half of the year, the highest half- year total on record for the sector and more than a 7% increase in investments over the same period in 2006.

Essentially, while investments in Web 2.0 companies are up globally, they have declined in the U.S.

From VentureBeat:

Venture capitalists invested about six percent more into Web 2.0 companies in the first half of 2007, but the increase was attributable to more deals in Europe and Israel.
Notably, early investors in Web 2.0 slowed their pace. For example, Silicon Valley’s Benchmark Capital backed just three deals during the first half of the year, with only one in the Bay Area. In 2006, Benchmark was the sector’s top global investor, with 16 deals. It was a similar story with Omidyar Network, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Storm Ventures, the survey found. The data comes from a survey by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.

Is the smart money leaving Web 2.0?

Not necessarily. Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, two respected firms, are the most active investors in Web 2.0 globally in 2007. However, both firms invest widely outside of the U.S. Maybe Web 2.0 is over in the U.S.?

In the U.S., investments in Web 2.0 were virtually unchanged from the first half of 2006, with 67 deals and $357 million invested.

Globally, investors pumped a record $646.2 million into 101 deals worldwide in the first half of the year. Within Europe, the United Kingdom posted the most activity, with a record seven deals accounting for $22 million invested. Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands each saw their first Web 2.0 deal completed in the first six months of 2007, the survey found.

From 2002 to 2006, some 40 percent of Web 2.0 deals were located in the Bay Area. That figure dropped to just 20 percent during the first half. Even New England drew more money for Web 2.0 deals than Silicon Valley, according to the survey.

Finally, valuations of Web 2.0 companies have more doubled over the last year, meaning venture capitalists are having to invest more than double the amount to get the same ownership slice as they did last year.

via: meventures.com

youmato is to be the first real global but also true local web 2.0 community platform aligning the three important Ps in live such as people, parties and places.
Speeding up time to market youmato recently aquired vicinia (www.vicinia.de) aiming to hit the markets as soon as possible.

youmato is all about ease of use, best of breed usability, a bag of new functionalities and of course mobile convergence.
Uploading and/or importing new contents will extremly easy to be managed.

Having closed a content deal with a site called future4, the team already started uploading available top content into youmato´s content repositories.
Hence the closed alpha phase invitations will be sent out in due course. Followed by a closed beta end of 2007.

youmato intially will become available across Europe to be expanded into Asia, the US and Australia.
Targeting families, friends, jet–setters and back packers witihn an age bracket from 18 to 50+ , youmato will connect/ reconnect people across continents providing top locations, parties and places to be.

Where does the name “youmato” come from?

“Mato” is the name of the mark used at the japanese art of archery called Kyūdō (弓道:きゅうどう) meaning the way of the bow.
The different rings within the mark, which is youmato´s logo representing “you” (in the center) “me” (around you) and “the others” (in the outer-ring).
The logo as such is seen by the youmato team as an analogy for the entire social network Web 2.0 experience.

After users have learned how to use social networks, they will move to youmato targeting their friends and contacts as a kind of natural life style evolution.

coverages and listings in English:
[MoMB] Museum of modern Betas

coverages and listings in German:
[Deutsche-Startups.de] http://www.deutsche-startups.de/2007/09/05/aus-vicinia-wird-youmato/

Tags: youmato, vicinia, lifestyle, web20, social, network, community, nightlife, MoMB, deutsche-startups

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