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Mixed in with all the Web 2.0 startups pushing video and user-generated content, there are plenty of companies still working with text and basic banner ads. If the Web 1.0 generation of entrepreneurs was supposed to have mastered those arenas, a collection of startups presenting at the TechCrunch40 show here in San Francisco said that some of the most basic tools and content remain elusive on the Internet.

A case in point is ZocDoc.com, a New York-based startup that launched on Tuesday as a way to help people to find doctors and dentists online and to screen them to determine what insurance they accept and what kind of reputation they have. Although all major health insurance companies provide their own lists of specialists, those lists are notoriously inaccurate and out of date.

ZocDoc founder Cyrus Massoumi, who conceived the business after a a sinus infection led to a ruptured ear drum during a cross-country flight, said the list of doctors his insurance provider offered was hopelessly long and gave no information beyond the doctors' names. "I was praying that the doctor whose name started with an 'A' had finished in the top of his class," he joked.

Legendary high-tech investor Esther Dyson said she was excited by the business, which she said "solves a huge problem." Once when she needed immediate care, Dyson admitted, she selected a doctor whose name began with a "B" solely because the name was at the top of the list. "People are fleeing the United Healthcare site," she said.

Like ZocDoc, CakeFinanancial.com is a personal investing business that you'd think someone would have come up with earlier. Cake offers a wealth of stock-tracking metrics not typically available on the average financial planning site, including real-time performance of hedge funds and mutual funds, along with ways to compare portfolio performance and trade tips with other investors.

Another presenting company, Spottt, said it was essentially the same business as the old LinkExchange, which was founded back in 1996 but became obsolete after it was sold to Microsoft Corp. Spottt offers a way for Web sites to swap advertisements and promote each other without paying for ad placements. It's a concept that was big in the early days of the consumer Internet, but which Spottt says remains relevant today. - Andrea Orr

For more on TechCrunch40, see blognation, Between the lines and Tech Trader Daily

See previous post from Tech Confidential

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