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Hitwise Predicts Which Web 2.0 Firms Will Win: Page 2 of 3

"That's 668% growth in just two years for the top participatory sites in the United States," Tancer said. The report included following mainstream sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Flickr.

Using YouTube, Wikipedia, and Flickr as case studies, Tancer tracked the demographics of content consumers and content producers. Based on Hitwise's ages 18 to 34 and 35 to 55 categories, Tancer noted that the younger crowd consumed the majority of content while the older crowd mainly was responsible for uploading photos, videos, or editing Wikipedia entries.

Even more astounding was Tancer's assertion that a small number of user categories -- Money and Brains, Young Digerati, and Bohemian Mix -- was responsible for setting the trends. While Hitwise has loose definitions of the three groups, they make up only a small percentage, sometimes as little as .2%.

"It's not an 80-20 split anymore, however," Tancer noted. "It's more like a 1-9-90 ratio with 1% making the content, 9% trading and sharing the content, and the remaining 90% consuming the content.

And just in case you were wondering what these six companies do: