Web 2.0 has been around for years now and the pace of promising new start-ups and large acquisitions has seemed to become slower.

In my opinion, there are not as many fresh ideas online lately as there was just a few years ago.

I haven’t seen a new site of similar innovation of YouTube, Flickr, del.icio.us, Wikipedia or Twitter in over a year. Whilst this is far from a scientific measure, it is, in my opinion, a somewhat good indication. Most start-ups I read about are now just a mixture of old ideas.

A slightly more scientific measure is just reading Mashable or TechCrunch. Once, these weblogs (like mine) covered every new half-decent start-up but now they seem to do more analysis. To me, this suggests that there are less half-decent start-ups or that perhaps blogging about start-ups is no longer as profitable, but that obviously means it’s harder for start-ups to launch.

The so-called ‘credit crunch’ also means there is less money to fund new start-ups and many internet companies are losing value. If the Internet’s biggest success, Google, can lose about 25% of its value in one month, it doesn’t send a good message out regarding the financial state of the web.

Google’s loss of value reflects the DOW Jones and its competitors, so the issue is obviously one with the economy in general. IANAE, but if the economy suffers, companies have less money to spend on advertising, which is how a large number of online companies generate their income.

With less money and so many ideas already having been used, making a start-up will become increasingly hard. I feel Web 2.0 is over, and whilst some start-ups will pop up, nowhere near as many to which we were accustomed will. Web 2.0, however, has taught us the importance of immediate access to information and adding a social dimension whenever possible.