Not too long ago, before the bubble burst as they say, one of the HOT new things was B2B technology. Hooking businesses together for their mutual profit. You don't hear a whole lot about that anymore. I think probably because those companies lost their focus and consequently never made any money. You see the real power of the "network" is in sharing data. B2B really was all about sharing that data. If you could emphasize that feature you could have made money. Becoming the middle guy in the selling and purchasing of data could become a very powerful and lucrative business. Especially since the new "emphasis" on standards is helping the process along. If you look at a lot of the hottest things in the web right now they all talk about sharing data of some sort. Flikr, Techdirt, Blog aggregators. All of them provide ways to access and share their data easily. And the investors are salivating. Notice I said "their" data. If you never have data to share no one uses your API/Standard. The reality is that Standards only work if someone shows you how to use them and uses them themselves. The Data Middle Men are the ones who will define these standards of exchange. They will be brokering the transfers and more importantly providing the infrastructure for those transfer. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because one of my customers has an opportunity to become one of the first of the Homecare Data Middle Men. It's gonna be a fun and wild ride :-)