Too many of the applications that are coming out of the startup world are starting to look alike. The problem with looking like everyone else’s offering is that it is hard to come up with a marketing discriminator. If you made a facebook zombie super poke application, and one already exists which has been successful, at best you will ride the coat tails of the application that was there first, unless you have some zombie super power poking ability that makes it a market discriminator.

No wonder people are getting burned out on Web 2.0. From arbitrary facebook closures, to adult friend finder folks wanting to be your friend, to bloggers doing some amazingly stupid things, the compelling reason to be in Web 2.0 from a user viewpoint is gone. The developers view point, the startup that is relying on those platforms is in the same boat. If users abandon the platform that is being developed for, there is a smaller and smaller market for you application or widget.

Too many people doing the same thing, that is not market differentiated, in a place where people are still interested in web 2.0, but are starting to draw back from because it is the standard cesspool of stuff we don’t want to see, or deal with.

Real innovation comes at risk to do something that no one has done before. It is not following the leader, it is coming up with something new, the new leader, getting there first, and making something that someone wants to use. Why was scabbelishous popular? Why is any attempt at getting your music collection on line to listen to anywhere popular? Casual games, things that we want to do, listen to, interact with, these usually do well. They also get sued to death because they violate someone’s intellectual property along the way.

If you want to be a great startup, come up with something new, or something compelling. We don’t need 150 million ways of streaming music; we need one that will work and survive in our lawsuit happy country. We want casual games that are fun to play, but won’t be sued out of existence because of copyright. We don’t need another 3D interactive environment; we need one where touch, feel, look, and the other senses are represented. The first one with a truly immersive 3D environment wins, of course it will be used for sex, but that isn’t the point that is a byproduct and one that needs to be acknowledged.

Web 2.0 is bland and vanilla, we have the same thing on hundreds of platforms, doing the same thing, trying to duke it out for first. Why are Digg and Reddit so popular? They were first. Why is Stumble upon so popular? They made it easier than dig or reddit. What is next in social book marking? Something easier than Stumble upon, with a more compelling reason to be there and use the service. We would like to cover something that will unseat Digg, Reddit and Stumble upon.

We would like to see some innovation, if you have a truly unique product that is not a wanna be regurgitation of what is already out there, contact us at suggest@techwag.com and we will cover it. If you are like everyone else, well, we have already seen it, thanks.