As Web 2.0 is becoming more entrenched with its user-created content, distributed through blogs, communities, and devices (iPods, cell phones etc..); services like Flickr, Del.icio.us, Digg, etc. have cornered their niche markets and have rapidly moved from being "startups" to "market leaders", with the power of new ‘social‘ phenomenon.

As Web 2.0 matures further, markets will begin to organize themselves and the leaders will become more obvious. There are, however, pockets of innovation going on beyond the developed markets, as I’ve stumbled across a few untapped, and essentially unexplored niche markets.

‘Books’ for instance — Web 2.0 is all about user-generated content, but it seems to be limited to the web, as we haven’t seen many startups extending the content creation functionality to traditional media. Blurb and Picaboo are currently one of the few services that provide services related to ‘books‘.

Other untapped markets include — Events, Stats, Survey (Forms, Polls), Payment Processing, Legal services etc..

Consider the unique tools each niche is building. There is an enormous opportunity to penetrate and capitalize on these markets, a demographic that is ripe for the plucking. The trick is to find out and exploit what people really need or want, and fill the void in the market that you’ve identified.

So get busy! There are a billion unique things that deserve your creativity, intuition and insight. What else do you see out there? What niche are you pursuing?