ReadWriteWeb

What happened to startups in 2011? E-commerce and mobile payments continued to grow, and group buying startup Groupon went public. Facebook, the biggest social network around, expanded in a huge way, announcing Timeline, frictionless sharing and a settlement (finally) with the FTC. It also swallowed up many promising startups, including group messaging service Beluga, social network-enhancing service Friend.ly and software company WhoGlue.

The mixing of social gaming and mobile payments, social network alternatives to Facebook, consumer cloud storage and apps that actually make you feel productive (read: not like you're just wasting more time online) came out on top as just a few of the most important startups of this year.

This year's top 10 startups list is a combination of companies that launched in 2011, and others that gained considerable attention. We chose these startups based on how they've changed or disrupted their niches and how they've influenced trends this year and for the year to come. They are listed in no particular order. Take a look after the jump.

It's the end of a big week here at ReadWriteWeb. For one, we just got acquired by SAY Media. As I sit here thinking about what happened in 2011 and what's to come in 2012, I keep in mind the simple fact that soon ReadWriteWeb will be operating under a very clean look and feel in this brave new tech world. What does that have to do with 2012 predictions? Not much. Just thought I'd remind you about the state of tech news right here and now.

Which brings me to my 2012 predictions for Facebook, e-commerce, location and social networks, the four areas I've been watching closely since I joined the rad team at ReadWriteWeb this past October. Come along to the next page!

This year, Facebook unleashed frictionless sharing. As with most things Facebook, it stirred up controversy among everyone from the casual Facebook user to tech industry insiders. Here's how it works: Anytime you're reading news from a social news app or listening to music from a social music app, Facebook automatically shares it to your Facebook profile (soon to be Timeline). Frictionless sharing could be the end of manual curation and the beginning of an automatically curated social Web. Or it might just become a combination of both, with some users preferring to continue curating manually, while others mix it up. Still others will go all-auto all the time. Up until now, the user had more control over their version of the social Web. In the social networks battle, frictionless sharing could work. But it needs some adjustments first.

Since 2004, as part of our annual end of year review, it's been a ReadWriteWeb tradition to select the startup that we think shows the most promise for the next calendar year. Back in 2004 it was Feedburner, which went on to be acquired by Google. Last year we chose location data provider SimpleGeo. It too went on to be acquired, a couple of months ago by UrbanAirship.

This year's Most Promising Company is tapping into two trends that are rapidly increasing in importance: Mobile Web and the next version of the Web's markup language, HTML5. With less than 30 employees, this little startup has big goals. It wants to be the Red Hat of the Mobile Web. Who then is our Most Promising for 2012? Read on to find out.