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For those of us who were a part of Web 1.0 and now Web 2.0, the experience of raising capital has been as much about educating investors on the creation of a medium as it has been about explaining the promise of a new application.

If you started a company in the mid-90's, your first challenge wasn't explaining to someone what your product or service did; it was explaining what the Internet was.

In 1996, I began to raise capital for an idea I had about an online application that allowed users to put their rolodexes online. Users who uploaded their contact managers could meet people they didn't know through the people they did know. We called this 'social networking' and it was embodied in a service named sixdegrees.com.

I spent two years explaining what the Internet was and why people would use it. We eked out angel round after angel round from high-net worth individuals, while the venture folks largely ignored us. By 1998, the venture world, and the public, awakened to the promise of the Internet and as a result, user generated content became the holy grail.

We raised over $25 million in the course of a few years. And just two years earlier, our pitches weren't about the promise of social networking, but an academic prediction that everyone would be spending hours a day on the Internet and that all matters of products and services would be found there.

Fast forward to 2006. I've started a location-based mobile dating service called MeetMoi. The private equity firms are once again flush with capital and prepared to put the money to work. This time the pitch isn't about the Internet, but a new type of connectivity; a new market in its entirety—location-based services.

Within the next five years, every meaningful service or application used from a PC will be used with the same ease and probably greater convenience from a mobile device. Some applications will be appreciably better.

At the top of this list will be location-based services. Think of a location-based service as any service which works only because the service knows exactly where you are.

Today, one receives coupons by visiting a website or via an email newsletter. In the near future, as you walk by, say Banana Republic, you'll receive a coupon via your mobile inviting you to a discount on their Fall collection.

Today, you search for real estate listings by visiting different brokerage websites or classified listings. Shortly, you'll be walking in the neighborhood where you'd like to rent an apartment and your phone will buzz with local listings that are on that block.  

Today, most people join online dating services and email people they are interested in meeting. But today, if you use MeetMoi, you receive mobile messages with pictures of people near your location who are also available and interested in a  date. You can start a chat and meet up at the corner cafe.

It seemed obvious in 1996 that in the very near future, everyone would spend hours, each day, on the Internet. It seems obvious ten years later that every application will move to mobile and that location-based services will lead the charge.