This is intreguing. I look forward to REALLY getting into the report. I wish that they also listed ALL the web applications they reviewed. It'd probably be a tedius read, but it would be interesting to know where things like Tumblr and Wordpress fit in... amongst many others obviously.

When you are finished reading the report, can you sell me your copy? I am interested in it too but not $98.00 interested.

Interesting... I don't spend any time in IRC Channels. I find them distracting. But it's cool that some people have gotten a job or two out of a Channel.

They're still a mainstay of open source projects. I remember when I first logged back into one circa 2000 and thought "Wait, people still use IRC?" Eight years later I'm still using Freenode; #startups is a nice extension of the news.YC community.