The other way that people have been thinking about this is through the lens of pain points and inefficiencies. Any time you can disintermediate you're probably creating something more useful.
Yeah, pain points and inefficiencies are a popular way to look find ideas.
However, I have found following a user behavior to be a little more useful for me. Sometimes the new idea or innovation is not easily categorized as a pain point, like in the case of Twitter. People were posting status messages incessantly in IM. Once Twitter launched, users had a service that aligned closely with that behavior.
Most people wouldn't recognize the status message feature of IM as a pain point or inefficiency, it was just a feature.
However, I have found following a user behavior to be a little more useful for me. Sometimes the new idea or innovation is not easily categorized as a pain point, like in the case of Twitter. People were posting status messages incessantly in IM. Once Twitter launched, users had a service that aligned closely with that behavior.
Most people wouldn't recognize the status message feature of IM as a pain point or inefficiency, it was just a feature.