Some local companies hoping to make the grade in Web 2.0
While the Boston area has yet to emerge as a hotbed for Web 2.0 companies, a small cluster of start-ups is scrambling to gain traction with new Internet business models. Here are five of the local players:
Brightcove Inc. The company, based in Cambridge, signed up another major customer in June for its Internet television and video tools. Sony BMG Music Entertainment said it would use Brightcove's tools to deliver broadband video. The start-up, run by serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, raised $16.2 million last November from a group that included Accell Partners, AOL Time Warner, and InterActiveCorp., whose chairman, Barry Diller, sits on the Brightcove board.
Eons Inc. At a rollicking party in the Charlestown Navy Yard last week, Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor formally launched this news, information, and services portal for people 50 and older. Taylor challenged his customer base ``to live to be 100 or die trying." Eons -- with features ranging from website indexing to longevity calculating to targeted advertising for travel and health products -- secured $10 million in funding in April from General Catalyst Partners and Sequoia Capital.
Gather.com Launching in stealth mode last year, this Boston social-networking company redesigned its website last month to enable conversations between users. Gather positions itself as a gathering spot for Web bloggers and their readers. It landed a $6 million funding round in January led by former Lotus Development Corp. chief executive Jim Manzi and New York investment bank Allen & Co. And it recruits online writers by promising them a share of its advertising revenue.
NameMedia When it snapped up Morefocus Group Inc. last week, this Waltham start-up acquired proprietary online content to help it develop its more than 650,000 Internet domain names. NameMedia, which stepped out of stealth mode in June, says it owns more Internet domains than any other party. Its business model is to buy and sell sites and develop businesses around the ones it keeps. The company is owned by venture firms Highland Capital Partners and Summit Partners.
PodZinger This audio and video search start-up moved into new offices in Cambridge last week and cut the cord with its parent company, BBN Technologies, which provided $5 million in financing. BBN's first consumer spinout, PodZinger uses speech recognition technology to create a text index letting customers subscribe to and download podcasts. Users of the technology can find content anywhere within podcasts and jump to the points where key words are spoken.
ROBERT WEISMAN 
