Understand human nature

Think about what most people want to do. For example, the desire of people to socialise led to the advent of first - countless internet chats, and then - internet social networks such as MySpace or Facebook. Similarly, one of the basic activities of daily living - selling and buying - quickly found its way into internet shops and auctions, most notably Amazon and eBay. By understanding men's nature one can also explain the enormous popularity of adult websites. Although most of our daily activities have already reached the virtual world of the Internet, there are still many waiting to be transferred. But perhaps more important are activities that have been created by the Internet and which are new to our lives. Those will remain of primary interest for new business ventures.

As Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn famously said, a global internet business should be related to one of the seven deadly sins in order to be successful. These are: 1. Lust 2. Gluttony 3. Greed 4. Sloth 5. Wrath 6. Envy 7. Pride.

Observe trends

New technologies can change our lives dramatically. Thus, spotting new technological trends plays an important role in discovering new business opportunities. Consider for example opportunities brought about by digital photography. A growing number of people having digital cameras made applications and websites for storing, sharing, editing or rating digital photos more and more popular. Many success stories have been built around this business. Similarly, more and more ubiquitous video clips coupled with declining prices of storing them made possible the success of YouTube.

Surf the Internet

Despite the fact that today one can find on the Internet virtually everything, there are plenty of opportunities for improvement. Even most popular websites have their limitations. Such limitations present opportunities for new-comers. For example, it is amazing how many successful websites provide little usability. For the sake of introducing new functionalities, their webmasters compromise user-friendliness. Explore some of the most popular websites or applications and think about what is lacking, what is annoying or what would be useful for you as the user. With the benefit of hindsight, the advent of Facebook could have been easily predicted by analysing such applications as MSN Messenger. Indeed, MSN Messenger can be viewed as a framework for today's internet social networks. Once you have a list of friends with whom you can communicate, once you can see if there are online and once you can play with emoticons, the next logical step is to put the application on a website so that you can flesh out your profile to include photos, comment walls etc.