I'm beginning to think a good way to find startup ideas is to pick through the mess Google has left behind with its labs and different free tools out there and actually make a go of creating a business around them. The problem with all these free Google offerings is that they scare away potential startups but aren't really run like businesses so it doesn't matter if they actually solve the problem well or not. Swiftype is a great example of a startup doing pretty much exactly that. I can guarantee the average response to their idea was "well, why not just use Google search."

I can think of a few Google tools that could be done way better if a startup put a lot of effort into solving the problem better, like Google Groups which is nigh unusable due to spam and a crappy interface.