April 10th, 2007
When is a startup not a startup?
Valleywag has tallied nominations (see below) for the hottest Silicon Valley startups from Linked In and Venture Beat solicitations, with Facebook leading the pack. If you look at the the companies mentioned, the term startup doesn't always come to mind. I think of startups as little companies with modest funding, few employees, big ambitions and little or no revenue–Twitter, for example. Some have lots of funding, like Slide, but aren't on fire. Meebo was founded in 2005, received A and B funding rounds and has 5.5 million monthly users.
Others don't fit into my loose definition of a startup. NetSuite, for example, has been around since 1998. Art.com started in 1995 and has more than 500 employees. Facebook was founded in early 2004 and now has over 20 million members, and cash flow. Photobucket was founded in 2003 and has more than 36 million users. Bebo was founded in 2005 and has more than 30 million members. Linked In launched in 2003, has 9 million members and is profitable. What about old MySpace? Last.fm came to life in 2002. Is CNET's TV.com, which has garnered 18.5 million users in two years, a startup? You be the judge…
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Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
