The Next YouTubes

After Google's deal, dotcoms are bubbling hot. What you need to know about Web 2.0

For budding internet entrepreneurs, the moral of Google's $1.65 billion purchase of video start-up YouTube is simple: Build a real, functioning company, then sell it to a bigger one. During the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, garage innovators could peddle imaginary businesses in initial public offerings. If an idea seemed as if it might make money someday (remember Pets.com?) that was good enough. Today's upstarts are more fully formed and are often led by wealthy veterans of the first boom. They know Google's not the only shopper. Yahoo! has spent close to $100 million for start-ups Flickr and Jumpcut, among others. Facebook may be next, with Yahoo! said to be mulling a $1 billion offer. With investors on track to inject $500 million into new Net firms this year--twice last year's total, according to a Dow Jones VentureOne report--this may be the start of a golden hunting season.

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