Top six sources for niche ideas

This is the first post in a series of post on discovering potentially profitable niches that you could dominate and monetize, via either AdSense or affiliate programs. One of the greatest hurdles that many would-be affiliate and AdSense marketers face is choosing their niche. Or the second, third and further niches, after they've already built blogs around their hobbies / passions / professional knowledge. Many people new to the IM (Internet Marketing) feel that the only niche that there is in the universe is - well - the IM itself. But if they are smart, they also quickly discover that it's absurdly over-saturated and competing against this crowd won't be easy at all. So they try to settle upon something less competitive, but hopefully, equally profitable. The problem is, many initial ideas seem to be either too wide, too narrow, or as competitive as the IM. As a result, many people give up at this initial stage, without taking any further action. They just keep promising themselves that they will get back to it one day. Let me come to the rescue. You don't need any great flashes of genius to discover your niches. You just need to approach it methodically. You need to learn the best sources of inspiration, how to mine them and how to assess profitability. There is nothing secret to it. So, for a jump start, a list of top six websites to look for inspiration.
Wikipedia Well, possibly the greatest encyclopedia of all times. It's constantly updated and covers virtually any niche you might imagine. Its biggest advantage is also its biggest drawback, though. It's so huge that you may spend really a lot of time to discover profitable ideas. And it's very easy to get distracted. Wikipedia lists offer a good starting point.
DMOZ directory The largest directory of websites edited by humans. It has an extensive classification tree, which is a great source of inspiration.
Technorati One of the leading blog search engines. It provides many tools useful in looking for niche ideas - we will discuss them in detail soon.
Delicious The grandfather of all social bookmarking sites. Just look what people are bookmarking, and you will know, what's hot. It's skewed towards technology geeks, but useful anyway. Again, it will be discussed in detail later.
Froogle The shopping search engine by Google. It lets you see the most current queries on its homepage. What's better than seeing in real time, what people are actually trying to buy?
Amazon Well, Amazon has grown from a bookstore to the largest retailer in the world and it offers a wide variety of goods. You can either use its full index of products, or you can focus on a directory of books subjects. You're guaranteed to find some great niches there.

In the next posts, I will show you exactly how to use these websites (plus some other tools, available online) to the maximum effect, discovering hot and profitable niches. So, stay tuned.