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For product ideas I like to use Twitter. Do some searches on http://search.twitter.com or use http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
Start searching different keywords or type in questions. You will be amazed what people are asking for.
Great brainstorming too.
Joel
I'm a big fan of social networking on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter as well.
You can check out the "groups" related to your product idea and really get a good feel for the popularity of the topic prior to even commencing work on the product itself.
You can also get a great feel for what sort of things people in this niche are specifically interested in by checking out the discussion threads within these groups, which can help drastically in your sales copy by allowing you to know exactly which needs should be addressed in the copy.
MySpace & Facebook have a TON of groups and you use a similar approach with Twitter. Twitter is so popular already you can usually find the Twitter profile of an already-prominent person in this niche by searching for blogs on the topic. Once you visit the blog pages look for bloggers who are also on Twitter and then go follow them. Once you're following keep an eye on what they are tweeting about and check out their followers as well!
If you like, you could even create a new twitter username geared specifically towards this niche. It's also a nice little traffic source if you include your URL in your bio, homepage URL, and in the background image of your twitter profile.
Use tweetlater.com to automatically welcome new followers with a direct message guiding them towards your niche site as well as an additional way of getting a few clicks on auto-pilot...
Checking out related Squidoo lenses on the topic is another way to scope out the niche and get some more ideas...
