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There are some eerie parallels to the dot com funding bubble of late 90's and the social networking funding bubble today. In the 90's it was about e-commerce. There were the Goliaths: eBay and Amazon who clearly dominated the market. However, there was a frenzy of investment in all kinds of vertical e-tailers, from Pets.com to eToys to completely niche-focused areas like "foreign foods." Then, there were companies that tried to piggyback on the success of the two big players with things like AuctionWatch and PayPal.

This time around, it's all about social networks, with MySpace and Facebook playing the role of the Goliaths. Recently, there's been tremendous investment in vertically focused social networks, for narrowly-defined demographics -- such as mothers or people who want to lose weight. There has also been tremendous interest in funding applications that piggyback on the success of MySpace and Facebook, with things like Slide, Photobucket and LendingClub.

Obviously, many of the bubble-era investments went bust, but there were some success stories, like PayPal and Zappos. What characteristics should an investor look for in figuring out which companies this time around will be the successes -- and how should we avoid the Pets.com of the social networking era? What criteria should we be focusing on and what hidden gems or opportunities are being ignored?

Mashups have been an integral aspect of web 2.0, since the concept started to emerge, but they've been somewhat limited. For one thing, mashups have typically required some technical knowledge, which cuts off most users. Also, many of them are formulaic, e.g. Craiglist + Flickr or Google Maps plus a list of Starbucks locations. The upshot is that for the typical user, there's been very little ability to develop mashups of one's own liking.

But now a number of companies, both startups and established internet vendors, are trying to expand this area. Yahoo has its Pipes service, and Microsoft has released a similar service, dubbed PopFly. Google is also testing its Google Mashup Editor. Then there are a number of startups focusing on this space specifically, such as Teqlo and Coghead. Former Microsoft exec Charles Simonyi is also working on something in this area, although so far it's been pretty quiet.

Looking down the road, how is this space likely to play out? What can we realistically expect a non-technical amateur to be capable of? What needs to happen, from a technological perspective, before non-technical users are able to create robust software? Or are non-technical users consigned to being only capable of simple, pre-designed mashups? At what point does the emergence of these DIY applications start to have an impact in both the enterprise and on traditional software vendors. If this is going to have an impact on software vendors, what can they do to facilitate and profit from this trend? Don't limit your responses to these questions. Support your predictions with quantitative data, if applicable.

As a Fortune 500 company considering a consumer-focused branding campaign that incorporates user-generated content, we are an office equipment and services provider looking to maximize the benefits of an online video campaign using YouTube and other online video communities. Obviously, we are aiming for a fresh and vibrant (and perhaps viral) response, but we also realize there may be somewhat negative portrayals of our brand.

1) Given our broad audience of consumers, how can we best encourage positive entries and on-message responses? Suggest online venues where the prevailing tone is upbeat -- or virtual locations that should be avoided if they are known to be too crass. How can these characterizations be determined?

2) Suggest creative ways to promote the collected video materials, after the submission period is officially over, that leverage online communities.

3) Other than ignoring or deleting content that may be negative, how should we handle submissions that are not entirely favorable to our brand?

From the point-of-view of a startup music recommendation service, we're considering expanding beyond music recommendations into other fields, as well as more geographic regions.

1) How should a mobile recommendation service best target the North American market? The European market? The Asian market?
2) What do you think the top 3 mobile recommendations services will be (other than music)?

With the introduction of the iPhone coming soon, there's been plenty of talk about whether or not it will succeed. Many analyst firms are weighing in and giving their thoughts on the iPhone. However, a much more interesting discussion may be about how it changes the rest of the market. Given the various strengths and weaknesses of the iPhone, how will other device vendors and mobile operators respond? We, at Techdirt, are raising this issue ourselves, and depending on the results, will help promote the winners on Techdirt, highlighting your analysis as a guest post while providing links back to your own site.

Flurry.com would like some blogger perspectives on mobile RSS feeds. Flurry offers a free mobile RSS reader (non-WAP) and is looking for feedback to improve its service.

1) Describe your view of the mobile RSS market. Who do you see as the leader in mobile RSS readers? Why?

Please check out Flurry.com (and try out the mobile RSS widget, if you like).
2) As a blogger, what would motivate you to include Flurry's RSS Widget on your blog?
3) What are Flurry's strengths/weaknesses, and how can they best promote/address them?

eBay is known as one of, if not the, largest advertisers on Google. After the recent squabble between the companies, eBay briefly removed all its ads from Google. If this continues (or happens again in the future), it could significantly impact both companies' bottom line. Presumably, eBay would get less traffic, and Google would lose one of its major advertisers. How much do you think it would impact each companies' bottom line and how would each respond to try to either repair/restore the relationships -- or replace the revenue from other sources?

With the launch of the Facebook platform, a number of startups are developing apps with the Facebook API, rather than on general websites. This can obviously make sense for some products, especially ones that want to leverage immediate network effects of a large social network. However, as a web 2.0 applications startup trying to determine a development path, what key points should we consider before jumping on the Facebook bandwagon? We have a recommendation-based service that will be initially ad-supported and then offer premium subscription services. (Think evite on steriods.)

As more and more devices add GPS capabilities, what features will really differentiate personal navigation devices (PNDs)? What location based services will be most valuable to drivers? To pedestrians? What will GPS devices look like in 5 years?

Several video-on-demand services are ramping up, allowing users to download TV shows and movies onto a variety of devices. From the perspective of a traditional content producer, which video-on-demand services will attract the largest viewership in the next year? How will TV studios need to change what they do as these services grow?

If you were advising a private equity group that had an interest in consumer telecommunication services, where would you invest in the next 6 months? What areas have at least double-digit growth potential? Restrict your responses to North America.

The nimble development teams that create small and useful mini-apps sometimes face a point when acquisition by a much larger software firm is desirable. A moderate-sized blog tool firm is looking for the track records of its potential suitors (eg. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, IAC, etc) for dealing with culture clashes and maintaining the usefulness of its products post-acquisition. From an insider's perspective, personal experiences and cautionary tales are welcome. From a users' viewpoint, describe how your loyalty to an acquired service was affected after your favorite widget-like software was bought.

We would like to compile the current size (# of providers, customers, revenue), historical growth, and potential growth in the wireless broadband internet market on two scales: 1) municipal wifi and 2) rural fixed wireless -- on a state-by-state breakdown.

This issue is clearly a tall order, so the first 10 acceptable responses to provide data and/or suggestions for obtaining this information will be chosen as winners. A follow-up issue to this project may be posted based on the responses gathered here.

Mywaves has created a unique embeddable video player (available at http://www.mywaves.com) with complete mobile capabilities. In addition to all the usual features of embedded players, it's designed to integrate with mobile phones and can be used as a viral marketing tool. With mywaves, users can send content from the web to their phones or to their friends' devices. Videos can also be uploaded directly from mobile phones and sent right to other users' handsets, as well as the web.

Mywaves is interested in the following feedback about its player:

1) What are the obstacles to adoption? How can they be overcome?
2) How can mywaves be marketed so that potential users can better see its value?
3) What groups of potential users should the company be targeting, and who can benefit the most from the player?
4) How can mywaves better reach that potential audience?
5) Mywaves is in the process of redesigning its site -- What are the top three ways the mywaves site could be improved to better attract and support users?

Please rank the following companies' media device strategy on (a) vision and (b) ability to execute: Apple for the iPod, Microsoft for the Zune, Creative for the Zen, Samsung, Archos, Sony. Rank each on a one to ten scale (1 to 10 for vision, and 1 to 10 for ability to execute), with one being the lowest, and ten being the highest. Please provide a short paragraph explaining your rankings.

If you had to bet on one single wireless technology to dominate in the next five years, what would it be and why?

The telecom space is facing an interesting convergence challenge, between mobile technologies, broadband technologies and VoIP. Recognizing that the trends for these technologies is inevitable, as a traditional telecom firm, what's the best strategy to embrace these technologies without completely destroying our core telephony business?

In the last few months, the online service Twitter has taken off. There's some debate if this is something really important, or merely a fad. Without necessarily rehashing that debate, discuss how a consumer packaged goods company might make use of Twitter (or similar tools) in innovative ways.

For context, in the early days of the web, plenty of traditional companies ignored the web and later blogs as passing fads, only to realize much later that they could have benefited from embracing such trends early on. As a consumer packaged goods company, we're trying to understand whether Twitter faces the same curve and if it makes sense to make use of it now, and if so, how could it be useful (if at all).