The joke aside, it’s interesting to see what services are considered to dominate.
- Where did Quora come from? Consider that Yahoo! Answers existed well before it.
- Where did Gowalla and Brightkite (now acquired by Limbo) go? They were around before Foursquare.
- Google closed down Google Videos recently. Probably because no one used it. It seemed redundant ever since they acquired YouTube.
People only care about one service per category, due to the social component.
This makes it extremely hard for startups and investors, as so many are called, and it’s so easy to set up services, yet companies that are very early on, have good leadership, and tons of money are pre-disposed to succeed in this market. To succeed without funding your business model must contain almost immediate revenue, like is the case with e.g. GroupOn.
- Half-empty glass: Of 100+ contenders in a segment, only one can succeed. In other words you simply won’t succeed.
- Half-full glass: The market is still quite open for innovations, and if you succeed you’ll be a billionaire and maybe even respected.