Israel is a powerhouse of ingenuity and innovation, boasting the largest number of startups in the world per capita. The abundance of startup companies in Israel is an outgrowth of the country’s high concentration of engineers in its workforce and government encouragement of entrepreneurship. Israeli high-tech has been made famous for startup innovations such as Internet security, instant messaging, and ingestible video cameras. Here are some stats from 2005 VC investments in Israels.
The average first investment made by Israeli VCs in the third quarter of 2005 was $2.75 million, with follow-on investments averaging at $0.92 million, according to a quarterly survey conducted by the IVC Research Center.
Thirteen seed companies attracted $34 million, a significant jump from the $22 million raised in the previous quarter and a slight drop from the $36 million enlisted in the third quarter of 2004, the survey said.
The survey, conducted in cooperation with the Israel Venture Association (IVA), was based on reports from 92 venture investors, including both Israeli and foreign entities.
Ninety Israeli high-tech companies raised $336 million from venture investors in the third quarter of 2005, according to the report. In the third quarter, Israeli VCs invested $188 million in Israeli companies, compared with $163 million invested in the previous quarter and $194 million in the third quarter of 2004.
The report found that Israeli VCs are putting more of their money into Israel and less abroad. The Israeli VC share of the total amount invested in Israeli high-tech companies rose to 56 percent, from an average of 42 percent over the past five years. At the same time, Israeli VCs investment in foreign companies in the quarter dropped sharply to $20 million compared with the previous quarter and $23 million in the third quarter of 2004.
The communications sector led capital-raising in both the third quarter and the first three quarters of 2005, the report said. Thirty-one communications companies attracted $112 million, or 33 percent of the total amount raised. The software sector followed with 16 companies raising $55 million.
Life science capital-raising slowed in the third quarter to $53 million, accounting for 16 percent of total capital raised, compared with 24 percent in the second quarter. The sector did, however, succeed in keeping its position as the second most attractive Israeli sector in the first three quarters of the year, attracting 22 percent of the capital raised, according to the report.
Pain can be mysterious, untreatable and debilitating, and its causes can be unknown. But if you could see the pain — or, at least, your brain’s reaction to it — you might be able to master it.
A study from researchers at Stanford University and MRI technology company Omneuron suggests that’s possible, and the results could lead to better therapies for those suffering from crippling chronic pain.
The researchers asked people in pain to try to control a pain-regulating region of the brain by watching activity in that area from inside a real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine. Initial results showed subjects could reduce their pain, some quite dramatically.
It’s the first evidence that humans can take control of a specific region of the brain, and thereby decrease pain, said Stanford professor Sean Mackey, who co-wrote the paper, which was published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “(Similar to) going to a gym and working muscle using weights, here we’re using the real-time fMRI technology to exercise a certain brain region,” he said.
Study co-leader and Omneuron CEO Christopher deCharms said for many people with chronic pain, available treatments like medication or surgery simply don’t work. But this exercise, which researchers have termed “neuroimaging therapy,” could one day help some of the millions of Americans who suffer from untreatable chronic pain.
In the study, eight healthy subjects who’d been subjected to a painful stimulus and eight chronic pain patients underwent a series of fMRIs. The images tracked activity in the brain’s rostral anterior cingulate cortex — an area deCharms said is related to pain. Subjects watched this area on a monitor in real time during the procedure. Prompted by researchers’ suggestions of trying to lessen their own pain by ignoring it or imagining it as benign, they set out in a mental game of hot-and-cold to lessen their discomfort.
Twenty-eight healthy subjects and four pain patients were also put into control groups that tried to control pain by viewing other patients’ brain data or using other mental strategies, but no fMRIs. These tactics didn’t show a significant reduction in pain, deCharms said.
The pain patients reported that the fMRI helped them decrease their overall pain 64 percent. Healthy subjects said they saw a 23 percent increase in their ability to control the strength of their pain, and a 38 percent increase in their ability to master its unpleasantness.
“I think most people found it very exciting to be able to watch the activity in their own brain, moment by moment, as it took place,” deCharms said.
Vera A. Gonzales, a pain psychologist in League City, Texas, said she thinks the study lends scientific data to what scientists already knew empirically — that people can decrease their own pain by focusing on certain thoughts.
It probably also helped that subjects could watch their brain activity unfold on a screen, she said. For years, some therapy methods have allowed patients to monitor and try to control their biofeedback by concentrating on things like skin temperature and heart rate.
Mackey and deCharms cautioned it will be some time before such therapy could be available for commercial use. They’re investigating the process of getting Food and Drug Administration approval, and right now they’re focusing on a study to investigate the effects of long-term neuroimaging therapy, deCharms said. One day, patients may even be able to think away other problems like depression, anxiety and dyslexia.
“We don’t yet have a good answer to what happens if you keep practicing and practicing,” he said.
Microsoft’s long running request for an interactive TV patent has been granted, reports The Register. The patent, which Microsoft originally applied for in 1993, enables the company to develop and market technology that allows television viewers to pause programmes to follow on-screen hyperlinks and participate in games, chat rooms and other interactive services.
The invention also solves the dilemma that confronts people when interrupted by a phone call while watching TV. When a programme is paused, the system records the time-sequential signal, delaying the display until the viewer is ready to resume watching. Given that 12 years have elapsed since the original application, the patent is certainly not new. Nor, not being exactly suited to today’s market, is it quite ready for use at Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft is interested only in the ‘pause’ clause of the patent.
The corporation believes that programmes such as sporting events will be able to incorporate hyper-links to internet sports pages and chat rooms, the additional content being displayed in a split screen alongside the main broadcast event. Microsoft also claims that no matter when, for how long or how often pauses are taken, the viewer can still enjoy the entire event.
Dubbed Patent #6,973,669, the document describes an invention using the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of analog broadcasts, technology that Intel once had great plans to exploit. However there are problems with bandwidth. Intercasting delivered data at around 10kbit/s while modern digital TV streams at 19Mbit/s per channel. Patent #6,973,669 has a total of thirty-five claims. In 2004 Bill Gates, predicting a drop in broadcast TV revenues, offered broadcasters his company’s split screen featuring Google-style ads. Despite being six times more expensive than its competitors, Microsoft has already won BT, SBC and Swisscom as customers for its interactive TV.
Two Israeli companies are behind the technology of U.S. company Nuance Communications’ new software that enables the vision impaired to have easy access to cell phones.
Nuance is utilizing the technologies of two firms it acquired – ART and Phonetic Systems – to substantially increase the size of on-screen content on handheld mobile devices, as well to change screen colors in order to help see text clearly. An estimated 150 million people worldwide have some vision problem that makes use of certain devices difficult, particularly cellular phones, due to small screens and the use of miniature font faces.
The Nuance accessibility suite includes audio feedback, improved display quality and support for a Braille keypad, innovations slated to improve the quality of information display and allow special-needs users to better use mobile devices.
Since the product is not language-dependent, it is available and accessible to any user. It will be available through cellular carriers or various Internet sites. It is available over the Internet in Israel, as the local carriers still don’t sell it.
It is, however, far from popularly priced, with Nuance Zooms costing 180 euros and Nuance Talks going for 200 euros. The Internet and cellular devices are not user friendly for the disabled. The Israel Internet Association and nonprofit advocacy group Access Israel have been working for some time to change the situation. But most solutions are still too expensive for many.
The REAPS (Rotorcraft External Airbag Protection System) developed by RAFAEL Armament Development Authority Ltd. successfully performed in a series of tests last month as part of Phase II of the Concept and Technology Demonstration program contracted by the US Navy.
The REAPS, is a one-of-a kind external airbag system, attached under the fuselage of passenger rotorcrafts, designed to moderate the crash impact loadings with a surface (hard/soft ground or water). Using a proximity sensor to measure the physical parameters of ground approach, the system is able to deploy its airbags prior to an imminent crash, thereby limiting passenger injuries and airframe damage.
The REAPS testing took place near Phoenix, AZ on Bell 206 rotorcrafts. Two drops were conducted at a maximum gross weight of 3300 lbs, at impact velocities of 27 and 34 ft/sec (1,600 and 2,000 ft/min). The rotorcrafts were equipped with four ATD’s (Anthropomorphic Test Dummies), two 50% (medium size) males, one 95% (large size) male and one 5% (small size) female.
The “passengers” were intact after each drop, and the airframe experienced limited damage, proving outstanding crash worthiness in helicopters that are known for their lack of it. In addition the tests proved that due to the REAPS airbags, the passengers were subjected to an impact of less than 25G with absolutely no rebound and secondary impact.
According to Mr. Ken Bennett, a helicopter specialist at HeliWorks, Pensacola FL, both helicopters were in a repairable state following impact.
“These tests indicate a successful completion of Phase II of the US Navy’s C&TD program.” says Dr. Benjamin Keren Corporate VP and General Manager Ordnance Systems Division at RAFAEL. “We foresee REAPS becoming an FAA certified standard component in all passenger rotorcraft; both in the civilian and military arenas, significantly decreasing the amount of casualties and damage so prevalent in helicopter crashes today.”
About RAFAEL
RAFAEL designs, develops, manufactures and supplies a wide range of advanced defense systems. These leading edge products include naval, air and ground precision weapons, electro-optic systems, electronic warfare (EW) systems, Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) systems, acoustic defense systems, armored protection and training systems.
Japan will budget 215 billion dollars over five years to maintain its reputation as a scientific powerhouse amid fears it is losing its technological edge, officials said.
Japan’s Nobel laureates and the Japan Business Federation had launched a campaign to press the government for the funding despite a cost-cutting drive under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Iwao Matsuda, a state minister in charge of science and technology, said Koizumi had approved a budget of 25 trillion yen (215 billion dollars) for a five-year science development program starting in fiscal 2006.
The Finance Ministry was initially against setting a specific figure for the science program, which will include research on bird flu, space and supercomputers. “We can show overseas and at home that Japan is still focused on science and technology,” Matsuda said of the budget.
Japan, once vigorous in promoting science, has recently been seen as falling behind China, which has an ambitious space program, and IT giant India. “We believe the path Japan should take is to provide a good research environment here for scientists from across the world rather than competing against other countries,” science ministry official Koki Uchimaru said.
Japan’s space program has been eyeing more ambitious projects since it successfully sent a weather satellite into space in February. That was Japan’s first launch since November 2003 when it had to destroy a rocket carrying a satellite to spy on North Korea shortly after lift-off when one of two rocket boosters failed to separate.
The failure was all the more embarrassing as it came one month after China, Japan’s neighbor and growing rival, became the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to launch a successful manned space flight. Japan earlier this week pledged 135 million dollars to help Southeast Asia fight bird flu.
“It’s not that nanotechnology is a bad business or that exchange-traded funds are a poor idea. It’s that the combination of the two, at this point in time, can’t deliver what investors like Roger really want, namely an intense focus on this emerging technology.”
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Roger D. from Salem, Mass., has been reading and hearing a lot about nanotechnology and figures it’s “America’s next great investment sector”.
Hoping to “get in on the ground floor,” he wrote recently looking for a mutual fund that specializes in nanotech. There is one, but the PowerShares Lux Nanotech fund, an exchange-traded fund, won’t give Roger what he wants because it’s a Stupid Investment of the Week.
It’s not that nanotechnology is a bad business or that exchange-traded funds are a poor idea. It’s that the combination of the two, at this point in time, can’t deliver what investors like Roger really want, namely an intense focus on this emerging technology.
Stupid Investment of the Week highlights the flaws and characteristics that make an investment less than ideal for the average investor, in the hope that spotlighting problems in one situation will make them easier to root out elsewhere. While obviously not a purchase recommendation, neither is this column intended as an automatic sell signal, as there may be times when unloading a problem investment merely compounds trouble. PowerShares Lux Nanotech (PXN) is only two months old and is up nearly 15% in that short time, so the only negative to bailing out would be dealing with short-term capital gains.
That rapid gain is what investors like Roger might expect from a nanotech fund; unfortunately, it helps hide fundamental problems in the fund.
Nanotechnology — sometimes called “molecular manufacturing” — is more about process than product. Where biotechnology focuses on specific techniques, nanotech is a branch of engineering working at the molecular level to effect change in the design and manufacture of goods. It has uses in countless products.
Functionally, nanotech is not so much an industry or sector as it is a foundation for development, kind of like electricity. It already is part of many everyday goods and, eventually, it will be pervasive; today, however, it is still a developing field in which many different companies are doing research and development to come up with ways to improve what they do.
Lux Research is the leading nanotech consulting and advisory firm, and the creator of the Lux Nanotech Index, which tracks 26 public companies involved in “developing, manufacturing and funding nanotechnology operations.”
PowerShares is a leading provider of exchange-traded funds, which effectively are baskets of stocks that are put together to track a benchmark just like an index fund but which trade like a stock. Exchange-traded funds can be a cost-effective and flexible way to capture all of the benefits of index investing.
But when you put the ETF structure together with a thin index like Lux Nanotech, what you really get is a muddle. The first clue is the 26 companies. That makes the index even tighter than the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 stocks and barely diversified on its face. When a sector is this narrow, it’s hard to construct an index that can be used as the basis for an investment.
During the Internet stock mania of the late 1990s, investment firms rushed to create “Internet funds” and built portfolios holding just about any company with a Web site. Eventually, to differentiate companies building the Internet from stocks like The Gap that simply used the Web as another distribution channel, “pure-play funds” emerged focused only on the firms developing the new technologies.
An investor like Roger wants pure-play on nanotech and the PowerShares fund falls short. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who considers General Motors (GM: General Motors Corporation) to be a “nanotech stock,” and yet it makes up nearly 2% of the index and thus the fund. The same goes for General Electric (GE:General Electric Company), duPont (DD: E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company), 3M (MMM:3m co com), IBM (IBM: International Business Machines) or Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) And yet stocks like that make up 25% of PowerShares Lux Nanotech.
Clearly, the name-brand companies use nanotechnology at one level or another, but it’s not yet grown to where it’s a major component in bottom-line profits. If interest rates and gas prices shoot up dramatically next year and new-car buying slows to a crawl, nanotech may help GM develop some innovative new products but it won’t save the company’s bacon.
Meanwhile, stocks where nanotech is the primary business make up less than half of PowerShares Lux Nanotech.
“Pure-play nanotech would be difficult to do today,” says PowerShares CEO Bruce Bond. “We’d be concerned about knowing the viability of those companies. … The big names in the fund are the companies that are spending the most on nano-enabled products in their businesses today, and they are the ones that have the most to gain as nanotechnology and research is made available.”
There are two other key reasons for allowing blue-chip dilution. First, there’s that questionable viability of pure nanotech stocks, as described by Bond, and then there is liquidity; having some giants in the line-up ensures the kind of liquidity necessary to run a fund based on an index.
Matthew Nordan, vice president of research at Lux, notes that it would be intellectually dishonest to build the index without including the giant companies that, to date, have benefited most from nanotechnology, and he’s probably right.
But it would be equally dishonest to sell a guy like Roger a nanotech fund that doesn’t give him much real exposure to the small, emerging issues that he actually wants to own. If GM, 3M and the others are nanotech stocks, then investors like Roger get their fill of nano through ordinary growth mutual funds.
“I don’t think you can look at this and think you really are buying a true nanotech fund,” says Jim Lowell, editor of the ETF Trader newsletter, a service of MarketWatch. “Yes, these big companies are very interested in using and developing nanotechnology, but it’s a research and development expense to them, not a profit center.
“When an ETF cannot hold what its name says it holds but instead reaches out to get stuff that doesn’t belong, you’re looking at a gimmick. Average investors usually are better off avoiding gimmicks.”
Chuck Jaffe is a senior MarketWatch columnist. His work appears in dozens of U.S. newspapers
Dec. 19, 2005 issue – Three years ago, the web site of Oppedisano’s Bootery, an 81-year-old shoe store in the amiable upstate village of Honeoye Falls, N.Y., was receiving a scant 100 visitors a week. Then the owners hired a Seattle consultant named Rand Fishkin, who performed an obscure procedure called a “search-engine optimization.” Fishkin built a new, easy-to-use Web store at a new address, shoe-store.net, and rewrote the shoe descriptions so that they were clearly visible to the Web’s major search engines, which scour the Internet and index its content. Since the search engines measure links as an indication of popularity, Fishkin also peppered online bulletin boards and shoe-enthusiast Web sites with links to his client’s site. It worked. Today, when someone searches online for Santana Helen boots or Dansko Montego loafers, the site comes out ahead of thousands of other shoe stores on the Web. “I don’t know much about this whole SEO thing,” says co-owner Korey Buzzell, who makes three times more money online than in the store. “All I know is that we’re in good hands.” If search-engine rankings are supposed to represent a kind of democracy—a reflection of what Internet users collectively think is most useful—then search-engine optimizers like Fishkin are the Web’s lobbyists. High-priced and in some cases slyly unethical, SEOs try to manipulate the unpaid search results that help users navigate the Internet. Their goal is to boost their clients’ (and in some cases their own) sites to the top of unpaid search-engine rankings—even if their true popularity doesn’t warrant that elevated status.
As online shopping grows, search-engine rankings can make a difference between success and failure on the Internet. This holiday season, 10.8 percent of shoppers will find their way to online retailers via Google alone, according to research firm Hitwise. And SEO firm Enquiro reports that the links on the very top of a search-results page—what users see without scrolling down—capture 70 percent of all users’ mouseclicks. That’s why the SEO profession has taken off, from a few hundred practitioners in the mid-’90s to thousands today, with many of them working inside big firms like Intel and IBM. “Having an SEO either in-house or as a consult-ant is now considered a necessity,” says Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, who notes that the companies are partly motivated by keeping their critics off all relevant search-results pages.
Search engines like google, Yahoo and MSN have a conflicted relationship with SEOs. They deplore the so-called black-hat SEOs who use unsavory techniques, like spamming the Web with dummy pages full of links, in an effort to make their sites appear popular. But they are increasingly tolerant of ethical or “white hat” SEOs like Fishkin, who primarily help their clients knock down the virtual walls that prevent search engines from fully indexing their site. Earlier this year Google engineer Matt Cutts started a blog directed at the SEO community, dispensing tips on how to make sites more visible to the automated software “spiders” that catalog the Web. It’s good for Google and SEOs: better-organized sites increase the amount of content in Google’s index, while improving SEO rankings.
But black-hat SEOs take an altogether different approach. Instead of working for clients, they generally attempt to propel their own ad-packed sites up to the top of the rankings, so they can capture searchers and get them to click on revenue-generating ad links. One British black-hat SEO who goes by the online handle Earl Grey, but requested that his real name not be used because he could be harassed by anti-spam vigilantes, showed NEWSWEEK one of his tricks. Using an illicit software program he downloaded from the Net, he forcibly injected a link to his own private-detectives referral site onto the site of Long Island’s Stony Brook University. Most search engines give a higher value to a link on a reputable university site. As of last week, Grey’s site ranked fourth on Yahoo and first on MSN for the search term “private detectives.” (Google, which moves more cautiously, can take up to a year to rank new sites.) If his detective site gets booted off the search engines, Grey will simply move on to another project. “I’m not very professional,” he says. “I do what I need to do to get where I need to be.”
White-hat SEOs largely steer clear of these tactics and often take a more scholarly approach. Fishkin, for example, studies each Google patent application and search-algorithm upgrade. “If you don’t understand how search engines work, you can’t do a great job of optimizing a Web site,” he says. He posts his findings to his ad-sponsored Web site, seomoz.org, which draws lots of links and thus itself has high rankings. But even he occasionally strays into “gray” territory. For example, for clients such as Seattle loan company Avatar Financial, Fishkin pays Internet ad companies to display text links across a network of sites such as The Miami Herald, betting that major search engines misinterpret these ad links as legitimate measures of popularity. Search engines say they are working on ways to discount these SEO shortcuts.
But for now, such tactics appear to work. Avatar Financial ranked seventh on Google last fall for its key search term “hard money loan,” a type of commercial mortgage. Then last month Google upgraded its search algorithm with a software update it called Jagger, a secretive scrambling of the variables it uses to rank sites. Avatar fell to page two of search results, eliciting cries of anguish from Fishkin’s client. But by last week he had restored it to the second spot on Google’s results, partially by increasing the number of links to the site on other financial Web sites. His clients were happy, and their rivals were probably out shopping for an SEO of their own.
As 2005 draws to a close, I am overwhelmed by the amount of Web 2.0 startups that this year brought. There were no doubt hundreds or perhaps thousands of new services that came about following on the trend of “Web 2.0”. Developers are beginning to create apps that are truly useful. Characteristics include more user interaction, far more efficient use of technologies such as AJAX, and slick design.
2005 also brought many “me too” companies. It seemed like every other Web 2.0 application was “The Best Social Bookmarking Site” or “The Best Startpage Site” or “Another Boring To-Do List site”. My only hope is that this nonsense ends a quick death by the end of this month. I am optimistic that 2006 is the year of “Web 2.0 Innovation”. It is the next logical step…and I anticipate it with great enthusiasm.
There have been quite a few “top web 2.0 companies of 2005” lists made in the past couple of weeks and I was sick of seeing the same high profile sites over and over again. Here are my picks for Innovative Web 2.0 companies.
To all developers: Your new years resolution should be to innovate, not immitate…we are counting on you!
1. TravBuddy – I like TravBuddy because it allows users to create journals of their journeys. The application mashes up with Google Maps and has some very cool AJAX features. This is a very cool way to discover and research destinations. Out of all the Web 2.0 apps from 2005 I am most excited about Trav Buddy growing and becoming a huge success. I love to travel and I love to research travel destinations. I’m tired of reading snippets from real people rating a hotel and even more tired of reading “about” sections on city websites, hotel pages, etc. This has huge potential.
2. Rollyo – Plain and simple, Rollyo allows you to create a search engine based on any criteria that you see fit. From digital cameras to triathletes, Rollyo is one cool way to gather information. The site is designed well and super easy to use. Great application!
3. TagCloud – Tag cloud is cool because it is loosely based on social bookmarking…and I do mean loosely. I like this site because you can through RSS feeds into it and it will automatically parse keywords and create massive “Tag Clouds”. This is a very innovative way to keep track of news, blogs, etc. that you have in your feed reader. 4. Digg – Viva La Democratic media! Digg was one of this years smash successes, and rightly so. Users submit stories, users “digg” these stories, popular stories go to the homepage, lame stories turn to dust. Digg is the first site I go to every morning to find out whats new in tech. Rumor has it that Digg will be branching away from tech soon, and as long as they do it in a way that doesn’t offend the techies…I can’t wait to read politics.digg.com, and money.digg.com, and bizarre.digg.com.
5. Yahoo Answers – Yahoo has been on a Web 2.0 rampage the past couple of weeks. One property that came out of this is Yahoo Anwers. The site allows you to simply ask a question. Then, the community answers you and users can vote which answer is best. This is one of those apps that might depress you for not thinking of it first. Want to know how to tie a fancy knot? Just ask and in a short time users will tell you! Brilliant!
6. NetWorthIQ – Wanna know how filthy rich you aren’t? NetWorthIQ allows you to enter in your debts, assets, cash, etc. and track your net worth over time. The site is easy to use and you can even compare yourself to other people your age, location, education level, etc. The graphs are pretty and the site really sets itself apart from the Web 2.0 pack.
7. SideJobTrack – Here is a beautiful project management application which, at first glance, seems to be a site in a very a crowded space. It is not! SideJobTrack sets itself apart by catering to more of an offline enviornment. There are tons of useful features such as invoicing, estimates, reports, and of course all the general project management features that all the other applications in this stuffy space have. Two thumbs up for this company going a step above to really carve out a niche.
8. gChart – gChart is a very cool idea based on the Google Maps API. You click anywhere on the map and it tells you the time zone and has a live clock. Who said Web 2.0 had to be fancy? This site proves that you can take a simple idea and create a very useful application. I love it!
9. MooFlex – I first got a glimpse of MooFlex a couple months back when they produced a video of the admin backend. MooFlex is a content management solution that has ajax galore. I give these guys two thumbs up for design and innovation in the content management arena. They are currently in private beta but there is an ultra cool demo on their site.
10. GiveMeaning – “GiveMeaning.com is a website for the $5 philanthropist.” I like this site because it creates a community where people can help people. There are a lot of very cool opportunities to donate to causes that aren’t stemmed from the big likes of Red Cross, etc. I found an organization that was collecting money and support to print brochures to educate the public about suicide. This is a very cool way to help out those in need and a very cool platform indeed.
There you have it folks. My Top 10 List of Innovative Web 2.0 Companies of 2005. Lets hope 2006 spawns a surge of innovation. I am excited about what is going on with internet business right now and I can’t wait to see what the next step is.Also, lets hope that 2006 spells the death of the social bookmark clones, to do list clones, calendar clones, startpage clones, etc. etc.
Important Addition
Basecamp takes the top slot in the Project Management & Team Collaboration category. Ta-da list takes runner up in the Online To Do Lists category and Writeboard takes runner up in the Web-Based Word Processing category. Basecamp and Backpack were also awarded Business Week Best of the New Web Editor’s Choice awards. Please add any other additions you might have in the comments. Thanks!
