Rapid turnover in the Web 2.0 space – the best get acquired

A review of what had happened to the Web 2.0 poster-children prompted me to review what had happened to the companies featured in my Web 2.0 Landscape dating from May 2007. This was one of the elements of our Web 2.0 Framework which has now been downloaded over 150,000 times.

In the diagram below the green circles indicate the companies have been acquired, while a red cross shows the company has joined the dead-pool. (This was a quick review so I may have missed things – let me know if so.)

If you compare this with the review of the companies in probably the most famous overview of Web 2.0 logos and companies below, my list seems to have been quite a lot more successful, I suppose since I was selecting these as representing a particular aspect of value creation rather than being randomly selected.

[UPDATE:] I’ve just worked out that this means 32.7% of the companies in our list have been acquired in the last two years, which is pretty significant turnover.

While this activity is over a period of two years, the very high turnover in companies (something like 70%) indicates to me more than anything else the pace of innovation in the space. Expect many more companies to emerge, and for most to either die or be acquired.