We all know which sites are popular today, but at one point they were new up-and-comers with an uncertain future. What was the buzz around these websites when they were just getting started? What was being said? We’ve done the digging so you can do the reading.

We looked for early mentions of YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Google in the press and blogosphere.

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Few people take the plunge and turn that Web startup idea into reality, and making a viable business out of it is even harder.

That’s why we had this idea to sit down with people who have launched Web startups within the last couple of years and pick their brains. We’re hoping these little Web startup Q&A sessions will be both inspirational and interesting, and plan on making them somewhat of a series over the course of 2009.

First off is Allen Stern, who many know from his blog, CenterNetworks. He is the founder of CloudContacts, a Web startup that launched last year. Allen was kind enough to let us pick his brain about his startup and Web startups in general.

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In 2008 the stock market fell into shambles, the real estate market tumbled, big companies announced big layoffs, VC investors became more careful, and the entire world economy went downhill. It’s enough to put a sour face on the most optimistic person.

But now contrast this with what happened with the Internet in 2008:

• The number of websites increased by 20%.
• The number of domain names increased by 19%.
• Not to mention that there were more than 1.4 billion people on the Internet, a number that will keep growing.

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It’s a common scenario: A new website launches after having built up a lot of hype around its service or product, only to almost immediately crash due to overwhelming traffic. These launch troubles are almost always scalability-related.

We see this happening a lot. It may sound like a luxury problem (wow, too many users!), but think about it: If you’ve created something special and spent lots of effort building up expectations and buzz around your product, you don’t want anything to stand in the way of people finally trying it out, do you?

Here are some real-world launch troubles from 2008, and advice on how to avoid these kinds of problems.

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