

Discuss: There are no more Google/Facebook size opportunities on the web. - sidder

I feel like all the big 1+ billion online opportunities have already been grabbed, and there's nothing big remaining. Does anyone else feel this way?
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coryl
In technology, billion dollar markets and opportunities are usually only
recognized after they've landed. Its hard to predict or foresee markets, and
even if you can, you have no idea what will work and what won't.

There are actually billion dollar opportunities opening up all the time with
every new platform. Look at how many companies the Facebook API spawned; Zynga
is valued at billions of dollars and is 3 years old. They make dinky flash
games for gods sakes. Playdom was acquired for around $800 million by Disney.

iPhone and Android apps have made millionaires out of small teams of
developers. The makers of Tap Tap Revenge, a series of iPhone games, were
grossing millions in revenue.

There are ALWAYS opportunities. Obviously fewer billion dollar ones, but who
cares otherwise.

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saurik
I second this. Back in 2000 I had a friend who had this stupid website called
"GroupNetwork". Every time he brought up his site (and he brought it up a lot,
as it kind of defined his entire life at the time) we'd all make fun of it for
a while before moving on.

Specifically, you would create an account on it, and then had access to a
rather limited blog mechanism (you could download much better blogging
software) and a relatively lame photo gallery (why would I trust this site
with my photos? it isn't even good at browsing them). You could then make
these things called "groups" in which you could add your friends, assuming
they also had an account (and how likely would that be, right?).

The worst part was that he had this "API" by which third parties could write
new applications that plugged into this framework... sounds great, but it
meant that all the third party apps had to use HTTP requests (dude: slow) to
get access to the data. He tried to make it feel better by making all of the
queries based on SQL (insecure? seriously: stupid).

OMG was that a stupid idea. ;P

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meatsock
Finding a way to filter silly questions off the internet is easily a
multibillion dollar idea.

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rick_2047
umm... interesting. Maybe someone can extend that and actually solve the
problem of spam.

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icey

      user:	sidder
      created: 15 minutes ago
    

Don't feed the trolls.

~~~
sidder
I didn't have any intent to troll, I just created this account to ask this
question. I think it's possible to have a meaningful discussion about large
opportunities in the internet's future.

~~~
icey
Alright, I'll take you at your word. The question is kind of ridiculous
though; there are new billion dollar companies created pretty regularly; what
makes you think that's stopped happening?

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sidder
The opportunities for creating tremendous value may move elsewhere, and the
web may simply become a utility. It became a lot harder to create a profitable
car company after the automotive industry matured.

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ippisl
One question you could ask is :are there any big industries that hasn't used
the full potential of the web yet ? the answer is clearly yes: just look at
education,health-care, web-video,human-resources and there are probably
others.

Another question : what kind of new technologies have the potential to enhance
the web ? telepresence,AI, augmented-reality and 3d-printing are probably just
a few. every enhancement could easily open new markets.

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Detrus
Only when I think about other industries as examples.

In theory the more people fussing around some industry, the more tools they
create for it, the more possibilities there are and so more money can be made.
That's been true for scientific and technological progress overall, but
individual industries stagnate.

I understand the feeling, you're out of ideas or whatever, but there are
actually more possibilities now than there were when Googleface was starting
out, in theory.

In practice industries stagnate for non-technical, social reasons. Too many
people join, create too much fuss, the best people might leave and create a
boom elsewhere.

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andjones
I remember reading articles 1998/1999 saying that the search problem had been
solved and no major new search engines would enter the market.

Google proved that wrong.

There are many 1+ billion opportunities. Think of the ideas that started
Google / Facebook - Pagerank and a class hand-book. Had these ideas been
explained to me as starting successful billion dollar companies, I would have
laughed.

Not to say that that all laughable ideas create billion dollar companies.
However, I think the laughable part is the interesting bit. Maybe we find
these ideas humorous because they force us to look at the world in a different
way.

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skinnymuch
How is the concept of ranking websites based on links a laughable idea? We
already knew search would be worth billions at that point and the methodology
of ranking sites during the bubble was awful.

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brk
Everything worth inventing has already been invented...

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Andrew_Quentin
until someone invents something else worth inventing.

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SerpentJoe
Every day the old technologies get a little more penetration and the world at
large is a little more ready for the next one. There's no market for Twitter
if the wrench hasn't yet been invented, but that doesn't mean there never will
be. Technology wave N is here; why shouldn't anything in technology wave N+1
be worth a billion dollars?

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schn
Can you prove this using induction?

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alanl
No way, the next big thing is always just around the corner. The world will
change, facebook and google will become old and their successor(s) will come
from somewhere they don't expect.

Look at how Microsoft surprised IBM, then Google suprised Microsoft and now
Facebook look like they might threaten Google's empire.

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skinnymuch
I'm not trying to be snarky or anything. I'm honestly curious as to how
Facebook threatens Google?

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marssaxman
A scant two years ago, someone might have said that there are no more MySpace-
sized opportunities on the web.

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skinnymuch
Facebook was already bigger than Myspace two years ago.

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bobf
Groupon has become a 1+ billion company in less than 17 months. See Forbes
article: [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-
groupon...](http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-groupon-
facebook-twitter-next-web-phenom.html)

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antidaily
Of course there are.

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cletus
I'm sure people said there were no more Google sized opportunities before
Facebook too...

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rick_2047
as far as I know, yahoo had captured the "portal" business, so "they" must
have also said "There are no yahoo sized opportunities left"

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gallerytungsten
I think there are more opportunities than ever before.

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lipaktest
I guess Twitter and Quora are the next Facebook/Google.

