So I was checking out rev2.org’s list of the Top 10 Most Successful Web 2.0 Startups to Date this morning, and noticed something interesting: Not one of them has IPOed or announced plans to do so. All of them have either been acquired by Web 1.0 companies (several of whom did IPO) or are still privately held.
The other interesting thing is that there’s no mention on the list of whether any of the companies is profitable (or was before acquisition). Wikipedia, being a non-profit, is off the hook there, but what about the others?
You’d think that after all the craziness in the last go-round, this time, any real definition of success would include some amount of actual profitability, but maybe I expect too much.
UPDATE 4/15 In comments on his site, rev2’s Sid clarifies:
Since most Web 2.0 companies are private and don’t release any information at all on profitability and revenues (with the exception of perhaps YouTube which we have some data on) I decided to leave that out. While I realize that’s one of the important things in terms of ‘most successful,’ Web 2.0 is really more about ‘who can get acquired for the most money’ than ‘who can make the most money.’ That was Web 1.0, and those companies are now the ones who are buying these.
Having lived through Web 1.0, I seem to recall it was all about the “eyeballs” and about IPOing as fast as possible, not about profitability, but hey, maybe old age has clouded my memory.