(L to R: Leah Culver, Pownce; Rashmi Sinha, Slideshare; Dina Kaplin, blip.tv; Marissa Mayer, Google; Cyan Banister, Zivity; Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins, and Elisa Page, BlogHer; Caterina Fake, Flickr; Gina Bianchini, Ning; Kaliya Hamlin, OpenID; Mena Trott, Six Apart; Arianna Huffington, the Huffington Post.) Women have been heavily instrumental in redefining the way we interact online. Here's a look at the most influential of these.
Marissa Mayer, Google | Courtesy of Google 
Caterina Fake, formerly of Flickr | Courtesy of Caterina Fake We've heard the stats before -- only a quarter of those involved in computer and mathematical occupations are women. And yet, in the ever-evolving world of Web 2.0, women have often been pioneers, redefining the way we interact online. To give credit where it's due, we tracked down the most influential of these. Our list wasn't chosen by star power, nor by career altitude. Rather, we feature the biggest innovators.
What she's done: As the lead developer and a founder of social networking site Pownce, 25-year old Culver has made it possible for people to quickly and easily swap large media (like files, movies, photos) without crashing their systems. Now projects like Twitter's photo sharing site TwitPic and Facebook are taking a leaf out of Pownce's book.
Update: Pownce's technology was recently acquired by Six Apart. The service will be shut down on December 15th and Culver will join the Six Apart team.
How she got there: Culver started out as an art major at the University of Minnesota, but found her calling in a required programming class. "Before that I didn't even know what programming was,” she admits. After graduating in 2006 with a Computer Science degree, she worked at iLoop Mobile and Instructables, two startups in the Bay Area, before eventually deciding to start her own thing. She built Pownce from scratch using a programming language called Python.
What to learn from her: You're never too young to start your own company. And particularly if you write software, your own web site can be relatively cheap. "As a programmer the route to your own company is easy -- you build a site and get people excited about it," says Culver. Pownce hasn't needed venture capital -- Culver has relied on funds from family and friends.
What she's done: The CEO and co-founder of SlideShare, Sinha was the first to create a site that allowed slides to be taken beyond limited office or educational use and shared online. "As with video, where early entrepreneurs recognized that asynchronous sharing on the web could work, we realized with presentations that it was time to move beyond in-person presentations and that you could share slides on the web. Others could comment, favorite, download and build on this," she explains.
How she got there: Sinha has a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Brown University. After graduation, she worked as a researcher at the Information School at UC Berkeley, focusing on how to optimize search engines and recommended systems (those “recommended” titles that pop up on Amazon when you're looking for a book, for instance.) She started her own user-experience consultancy -- clients included eBay, iFilm, AAA and Blue Shield -- which then eventually morphed into SlideShare.
What to learn from her: If you're tech-oriented, and particularly if you're female, Web 2.0 is the best place to start out. "There are more entry points in the Web 2.0 world than in more hardcore tech companies like Intel. Web 2.0 is also the right mix of the social and the technical so that women can prosper. They are contributing in a more visible manner than in other tech fields."
What she's done: A 10-year veteran of Google, Mayer -- currently Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience -- was a major player behind many of the company’s most popular interactive services, including Gmail, the first email program to follow a threaded-message model; Orkut, which Mayer envisioned as the first social network that wasn't angled towards dating; and iGoogle, which allows you to personalize your Google page.
How she got there: Originally a biology and chemistry student at Stanford, Mayer graduated with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and an M.S. in Computer Science. Prior to joining Google, Mayer worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at non-profit research institute, SRI International, in Menlo Park, California.
What to learn from her: If you’re going corporate, don't just look for a role that will suit you -- find a company that will help you grow. "Find an environment where you feel very comfortable, an environment where people will invest in you," says Mayer. "Google really invested in me and I'm really at home there. Fundamentally I'm a geek, and everyone around me is a geek so I fit right in."
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Recent Comments | 20 Total
November 10, 2008 at 7:23pm by Nunya Business
What about the Internet's most powerful blogger?
Jocelyn Testes-Harder of FilthyRichmond.com
November 10, 2008 at 9:11pm by Steven Ballmer
Sorry, but this is a man's internet!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
November 11, 2008 at 3:27am by Leslie Carothers
What about Charlene Li of Forrester Research who wrote Groundswell? She was one of the first in the space?
November 11, 2008 at 8:31am by Debbie Hemley
Thank you for this list of very impressive women and their accomplishments.
What's particularly interesting to me is how one's educational backgrounds and degrees don't necessarily dictate or account for where they end up, or the diversity of the work they go on to do.
That's one of the best take-aways about what to learn from these ten women!
Debbie Hemley
www.impressionsthroughmedia.com
November 11, 2008 at 4:15pm by Maggie Tsai
Thanks! Great article.
What about Tara Hunt - she has been involved with many web2.0 communities and plays a role in jump starting the amazing Twitter microblogging phenomenon
November 11, 2008 at 5:50pm by Patricia Santamaria
Sandy Carter from IBM has done a lot with Web 2.0 to innovate in connecting with customers, and she’s shared advice and some interactive examples in conjunction with her new book on this topic: www.ibmpressbooks.com/angels
November 11, 2008 at 6:02pm by Saabira Chaudhuri
To clarify, as the introduction to the piece clearly states, "our list wasn't chosen by star power, nor by career altitude." Rather, we judged each candidate on a single criterion: has she definitively changed the way we interact online? Some of these women gave us new tools to speak to one another. Others put those tools in more people’s hands. Still others are thought leaders, attempting to simplify and enhance how we interact online. We offered you these names knowing our list would spark debate. There are many highly deserving women out there who weren't featured on our list: Sheryl Sandberg, Susan Mernit, Tara Hunt, Angie Chang, Jane Hu, Mary Hodder, Anastasia Goodstein, Esther Dyson, Allyson Kapin... The list goes on. This is not meant to be an indication that they aren't important or influential - they just did not fit the parameters we were using for this list.
November 11, 2008 at 7:56pm by Maikel González
Congratulations Rashmi, I'm fan of Slideshare
November 12, 2008 at 9:57am by Allyson Kapin
Saabira - great article. I'm so glad FC did an article featuring women who are breaking new ground in the Web 2.0 world.
To the commenter's on the article. It's always challenging coming up with these lists. Instead of criticizing why your favorite expert was not on the list, how about celebrating this great article that gives women in the Web 2.0 world the credit they deserve. Women profiled by major media is a rarity these days.
November 13, 2008 at 11:49am by Rob Loach
Amber MacArthur! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_MacArthur ...... Canadian too!
November 13, 2008 at 1:46pm by Tim Tymchyshyn
I see a bunch of pretty faces and smiles
I see in the comments a bunch of guys scared because those women understand it better than they ever could
November 13, 2008 at 6:10pm by michael lamb
Ok I'm going to be the bad guy here and say what I feel.
1) Saabir- did you do any research on this? or did you just see how many names come up from the same lame 250 people that all talk about each other?
2) how did you include some of this list?
SixApart? Aren't they in bankruptcy?
Ning? are you serious? Because of Andreessen ONLY
Culver? really - anyone outside the valley ever heard of Pownce? Didn't think so.
blip.tv? ditto
in fact the only one of these who's been heard of outside the Valley is Huffington.
I could give you a much better list than this. At least you got the BlogHER girls on there - they deserve it.
November 14, 2008 at 9:50am by Allyson Kapin
Michael instead of slamming Saabira for choosing these women to feature who the media rarely covers when they talk about tech, how about taking issue with the fact that the mainstream media and tech conferences feature the same 20 men for most of their tech related articles and panels and rarely include women. That's something to be mad about!
November 14, 2008 at 3:19pm by Andrea N
I loved this article, Saabira. So much, in fact, that I blogged about it myself! http://www.zenogroup.com/blog/2008/let%E2%80%99s-hear-it-for-the-women/
Thanks for taking the time to write and honor a truly amazing group of women. It's very well-deserved.
February 18, 2009 at 3:00am by Sharon Wilson
This is a great list of influential women who would make a difference in a woman's career particularly. Web 2.0 is a wonderful tool and I do agree, its worth making use of this powerful tool.
May 7, 2009 at 6:37am by Tina Jonasen
I miss seeing Penny Power - The founder of the Social Business Network Ecademy, here :-(
June 10, 2009 at 10:29am by Dhanendra Sivarajah
Most Influential Women in Web 2
June 13, 2009 at 9:24am by Eric Shannon
Well Gina Bianchini deserves to be at the top of this list - I'm a big fan of Ning. I run five or six networks and cannot say enough good things about it. Whether it's for business or pleasure, this social network software just does its job. My hobby website is a good example - a site for RC glider and RC sailplane enthusiasts, it runs itself. It doesn't just run, but it thrives! My hat's off to Gina.
Eric Shannon
LatPro.com | JustJobs.com | DiversityJobs.com
July 5, 2009 at 7:31pm by Simon Garfunkel
Great list. However I feel like Marissa Mayer deserved a better position. She is one of the most influential women on the net, being able to have one of the strongest voice in Google's search products. However, although I will say Gmail was a great success for her, Orkut never reached the top level.
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July 8, 2009 at 6:30am by sulu jackieo
oh,oh, women in the internet. Hope they do better in web online.
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