Google's a big company with lots of brilliant people. It's hard to imagine any feature or technology they couldn't easily implement. For the rest of us, hopef

Google's a big company with lots of brilliant people. It's hard to imagine any feature or technology they couldn't easily implement. For the rest of us, hopefully those smart people turn into (or remain) researchers don't start churning out products. Of course, that doesn't seem likely. It does seem like applying technology to social networking is becoming a commodity. Not that there's not more to be done, but there are an aweful lot of me toos and simultaneously similar endeavors. Darwin would be happy. I think the key to creating value it to look where other's aren't. Once enough smart people and companies are working on a problem, the value you can create by following everyone else is much more deminished. If all the great athletes were trying to become home run hitters, an up and coming athlete would have much better odds looking towards a slightly less popular sport in which to excel. I think there are too many people trying to hit home runs at social networking. If you have a great (novel) idea, start swinging, if not, look for a different domain to create value, I think your odds will be better. I think you are right that 3D interfaces are coming up next, but I'm not sure your approach is correct. As others have mentioned here, 3D in a browswer is probably not the way to go. The Croquet Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_project) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_project) look like they are on to something... and it's free and open source (I wonder how that will effect all those "about to launch" companies you mention). To have satisfactory 3D you want a local engine that works directly with the hardware (or such functionality integrated directly into the browser). But you seem to be disappointed in these options. With regards to the low barrier to entry concern. Yeah, I see the same thing which is what has stopped me working on a few of my ideas (a couple of times a decision I regret). I think to a large extent this is due to the ever decreasing development times (open source and development efficiency), and more efficient sharing of ideas (blogs/tagging). This seems to be a structural change that will only get worse. Original thinking definitely creates more value, but I'm not sure it's necessarily creates a higher barrier to entry. While everyone else is running the marathon, take the short cut (look where they aren't). It doesn't matter if you don't have a high barrier as long as you shock everyone with what you produce. It's winning the race that counts (launching a successful company), not trying to run faster than everyone else.