Charles Teague and I were riffiing today on entrepreneurial opportunities around the iPhone, location-based services, and other areas.   A recurring discussion theme was:  sometimes technology disruptions don’t lead to NewCo opportunities.  Why?

Consider the hype around Web Services from years ago.  There were dozens (perhaps hundreds) of companies funded, but today, can you name a single durable, sustainable, profitable, value-creating Web Services company?

Web Services is clearly an important disruptive technology, but the value created was entirely absorbed by existing companies:  Amazon, Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc. and the hundreds/thousands of other Internet technology companies.  In other words, it wasn’t disruptive enough.

True disruption comes when a new technology is so different, existing companies have difficulty processing it, and that “processing delay” lets a NewCo move in.  The Internet was the last major example:  Amazon was off to the races while Barnes and Noble was still parsing the implications.

Many disruptions really aren’t truly disruptive.  Take location-based services — it seems clear that most of the benefit is going to be absorbed by existing apps and companies.  It’s not to say that location-based services can’t be a component of a successful app, but I have a hard time believing that the location-based companies (e.g. Loopt, Where.com, etc.) will be successful without major strategy changes.