Many things in life can be traced back to one single source. The latest gadgets you have now can be traced back to the invention of the light bulb - because gadgets needs electricity. Similarly, What is the source of today’s popular web applications?

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Not necessarily true for most of today’s web applications that are being launched everyday. Do we really need to update our every move {twitter}, do we really need another online video site, do we really need another photo sharing site {zooomr, launching again}? Some say Yes, some say No.

The thing is that once something has been invented all it can undergo is an upgrade along with a new coat of paint. Rarely do we something that is completely original {one example could be digg which took user submitted stories to a new level} which just takes the web by storm. So in an effect - true most of the time Necessity is the Mother of Invention, but nowadays Diversity is the Mother of Re-Invention.

Sometimes it’s also necessary just to have fun. So maybe we can save twitter because of the fun factor.

Diversity

From the over 1 Billion internet users not everybody feels comfortable using flickr for photo sharing. If you can concentrate on and corner only a certain demographic of the market, like picsquare and printcamp, then you might find yourself more successful than even the top sites that started the genre in the first place.

Sometimes the language can be a deciding factor as well. With over 1 Billion speaking Chinese, Baidu.com is the No.7 most popular site in the world. The web is as diverse as the world itself.

Web 2.0 is more than just the old web in a shiny new logo with a gradient background. Web 2.0 is about diversity. The basis of the web since the beginning was to be able to access information everywhere you went and do a lot of the things you did in real life, like shopping, online as well. But yet, many online shopping sites are still stuck in the old pre-bubble web where it was more or less U.S.A only or nothing. Can you imagine what would happen to sales of Macys.com or Target.com if they decided to ship outside of the U.S? I would be ordering stuff like crazy.

So what’s the Source for The New Web?

Most will say the mistakes that people learned from the bubble contribute to the way they now do business on the web. But the influx of investment going on in Silicon Valley has even made news on techcrunch as being too much going on too fast.

So what makes these VC’s pump in those millions over and over again into a web service? The answer lies not with the VC but with YOU. You are the Source for The New Web, You are what makes coders sit hunched up for hours upon hours in front of their computers executing command upon command all for their 15 minutes of fame. Which will hopefully last longer than that if their app rocks.

Sure some do it for the pure thrill of it, but then again those are probably 16 and live with mom and dad, which is fine. Thats when you learn to just enjoy what you are doing, because it’s usually then that a eureka moment strikes and you end up with something totally out of the box.

As long as you continue to be fascinated, we’re human we’re easily intrigued, the source for the new web will always be there.

Conclusion

The internet is expanding, and there doesn’t seem to be a slowdown. Ideas turn into inventions, inventions give place to innovation, and innovation gives way to a constant influx of ideas. An independent cycle that keeps moving round and round, just like that other invention that got things rolling in the first place - the wheel.

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About the author

Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.