After I got asked twice yesterday about where I currently saw opportunities in the consumer Internet space so it felt like good timing to sum up my thoughts on this topic in a quick blog post. Here are the 3 areas that I find the most interesting for the moment:

• Better targeting and increased accountability for display advertising: Google has set the industry standard for performance advertising but nobody has yet figured out how to drive accountability into display advertising. There are several companies working on solutions but none has captured significant market share so far.
• Marketplaces built on Twitter: Twitter is rapidly emerging into real-time search and there are opportunities to build (information, service or commerce) marketplaces on top of this eco-system. Examples are Splits.org (matching of recruiters) or Stocktwits for discussions around stocks).
• Education: the education vertical is a natural for a high online penetration and while progress is being hampered by slow-moving institutions sitting in the middle, more and more educational ideas are getting traction. Examples are Seattle-based Teachstreet (an online community for education) or recently funded Myngle (a platform for online language education).

All three opportunities feel equally big and important to me so it will be interesting to see what ideas will emerge in these areas over the next little while.