This illustration was created in early 2006 using logos of Web 2.0 companies that made headlines or were launched around that time. You can scan through the archives of TechCrunch to read more about any of these Internet start-ups.
Web 2.0 Logo Map – Original Version
Obviously, lot of things changed in the last three years – some companies got acquired, some became successful on their own while others went bust.
Meg Pickard of Guardian went back to the drawing board and updated the original Web 2.0 map to mark companies that either vanished or were acquired in these years. Here’s her updated version of the chart.
Web 2.0 Companies That Got Acquired or Vanished
A pink cross means that the company is dead now while green circles mark companies that got acquired.
Obviously there are some companies like XDrive that were acquired but still closed shop so you see both a cross and circle against their logo. And two greens circles, as seen on the logo of Pegasus News, means that the company was acquired twice in the same period.
Game Web 2.0 Over? – Picture Credits: Meg Pickard & Stabilo Boss [via]
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/chart-of-internet-companies-that-vanished/8619/
Reader Comments
It would be interesting to create a new picture of today’s companies, and then come back in two years to see what’s happened. Wonder how Twitter will fare….
Written by Matches Malone on 05.16.09
Really usefull list! Thanks. Now I can check to see why those companies did not make it and why the other companies did. Keep writing them :)
Written by Bleau on 05.16.09
Meg’s a glass-half-empty kinda gal, no? Big thick X’s. Thin circles. Looks to me like alot of web 2.0 entrepreneurs got rich in the last few years. Good times.
Written by Steve Fogarty on 05.16.09
This is very interesting. Im surprised there is really not more company on the list who havent gone under.
Written by Crenk on 05.16.09
Steve – blame Photoshop for any glass-half-emptiness. The X and O shapes are merely the default thicknesses for some standard clipart available within the program. Because my update was done very quickly and roughly, I honestly didn’t pay any attention to the thickness of the symbols (though I did try to use colours which weren’t represented in the logos and which you could read through).
Written by Meg on 05.16.09
cool! really liked the title of this article :) Very interesting post. Looks like more than 50-60% of startups that come up, close their shop within an year or two! So many times, it’s not that the idea is terrible, it’s just the way they implement it!
Written by Mehul on 05.17.09
Thanks for the info Graphics always make it so easy to comprehend at a glance..
Funny,I was just thinking a few days ago how many company’s that I know in the hospitality industry have launched and then collapsed due to many factors but mainly bad planning.
Written by Tony on 05.18.09
I don’t know Bleau, I’d say the “size” of the circles is less relevant than the fact that there are blessed few of them compared to the X’s … and I’d actually prefer to have the “acquired” versus “closed” be marked differently because a company closing its doors because of a failed business isn’t exactly the same as being acquired and angling towards liquidity event, is it?
It is a reminder of the froth that has been the last couple of years. As much as the downtown is a bad thing, I’d say in terms of cleaning house it’s been very useful.
Written by Cathy Brooks on 05.18.09