Anyone with a smart phone can post an instant rating of just about every hotel, restaurant, museum, airport or building in the western world. If you’re an entrepreneur who looks for undiscovered ground in the social media universe, you may be thinking it’s time to put away your Y-Combinator application. There aren’t any more lands to discover out there. All the good ones are taken.

But there’s a next wave of web services that don’t concern themselves much with new ground, and instead go deeper into territory that’s already firmly established. Take Kevin Rose’s Oink, which brings the everyday restaurant rating to a deeper level by rating the individual dishes. You don’t just rate the restaurant or the dining experience, but any individual item on the menu—in other words, the actual food.

Similarly, a new addition to Google Maps allows you to view the inside of selected buildings. For now: airports.  

We’re seeing the Deeper trend in marketing as well. While some companies are experimenting with Instagram and Pinterest, two niche social networks, most brands are diving deeper into their Facebook accounts and looking for opportunities to increase engagement there, rather than expanding out to uncharted waters.

Expect to see more of this trend as consumers and businesses stop looking for more ground to cover and start looking for greater depth in areas already well-established and reassuringly familiar.

- Ely Rosenstock, Director of Social Media