The linked article posits that we haven't seen any large innovations for the last few years and that the current crop of "innovation" is simply incrementally improving existing technology.

I agree with his assessment, and I wonder what everyone thinks the next wave of technological innovation could be (or is).

Some thoughts to get things started:

The telegraph/telephone came from a big boom of innovation and then settled in for decades once everyone had one. Telephone technology (at least at the consumer level) didn't improve until the advent of computers and cellphones.

Will internet innovation follow a similar path? If innovation is indeed slowing down, perhaps what we have today will resemble what we have in 50 years, just more ubiquitous?

In the article the author touches on two points briefly at the end that I think are the areas where we'll see some great innovation in the coming years:

1) The next wave of technology will be bringing the online world into the physical world. Smart phones started the trend by letting us take the internet anywhere and now we have self-driving cars and Google Glasses inserting extra data on top of whatever you look at.

2) Local services like foursquare will also come into play as they start to feed their huge data sets back into the real world. We'll go from logging and categorizing everything to getting instant feedback and recommendations for everything we do. The joke of Jotly being silly quickly disappears when you realize that all of that data you are putting in is actually useful to you if you just have the right algorithm to sort it out and analyze it for you.

If you think of previous technologies that have 'matured' and stopped innovating (cars, electricity), I'd say the Internet is far from it. We are at the very beginning of social services and mobile internet, in which we have not yet quite figured out the state of it all. So I'd say then answer is NO, we're still at the beginning of innovation.

Do you think the fact that broadband/mobile internet has almost saturated the population has an effect?

I think I broadly agree with that article. A few random thoughts:
1) I think that the funding paradigm we have found ourselves in since web 2.0 began is losing steam. There are only so many ideas that work in the "do a little bit, launch, grow, prove yourself, get a little bit more money, do a little bit more" cycle. It limits our ability to tackle big ideas. Stuff like Space X and Tesla and whatnot could never have been funded that way, but most entrepreneurs are expected to operate that way.

2) Andreeson's "software is eating the world" theorem is happening and is super interesting. I see TONS of exciting new tech from companies like FieldLens, Lua, etc., that are seeking to bring internet tech to outdated industries (construction and film in their cases). It's not the social web, but the internet has a lot more innovating to do.

3) That article alludes to it, but environment, education and healthcare are HUGE. There's still tons to be done with the internet in those realms. They're big, and tough to crack, especially with our current funding models (see #1), but things like Khan Academy and Skillshare and CakeHealth are starting to make a dent and that is exciting.

I think Rick's comment #1 is really interesting: Is creating a social/mobile/local business that simply iterates on existing ideas becoming a bad business model, or do you think we'll still see some big innovations in that area?

@Vivi, is your comment targeted at the broader "internet" or would you say the same about the more specific Mobile/Social/Local niche of it all?

Being an ad guy, I see many things through that prism. We had the dot com bubble, guilt about zero revenues, a new zeal towards small companies rapidly achieving revenue via small investment rounds in web 2.0, and advertising being the means for most of them to get there. We've iterated on that theme a bazillion times. It's blinded us to solutions and problems that can't be achieved in this manner.

@Geoff - I believe that we have a lot of innovation ahead of us in all these domains.

Just like the perfect search engine would give me the one answer I am looking for perfectly, just so I imagine a phone that, when I open, is aware of who I am, where I am, what I am planning to do, and just gives me exactly what I am looking for, based on friends, past, history, taste.

I think we're far from that and from other things that I can't even imagine.

1) I think "the internet has stopped innovating" is too broad of a statement. I share the author's distaste for this build free product/sell/rinse/repeat startup environment that's being encouraged by the VC market, but I don't believe that it warrants such a hyperbolic viewpoint. Remember The Web Is Dead? – wired.com

2) I would love to see a fundamental shift from both consumers and VCs where paying for content or a service is no longer the exception. There definitely have been newer business models that don't require a direct payment model and seem to be doing just fine (Svpply, Fab, etc.) but it would probably have to take a more radical approach to reform the expectations of consumers in such a massive way. As long as the platform is experienced through a browser, though, that will be a long time coming.

I really like Rick's first comment, as well. Many innovative companies (SpaceX, Tesla, any of the social giants) have taken an enormous amount of investment to get to "change the world" status. Both the article and the new Lean Startup movement, however, argue for practical and successful business models as soon as possible. Aren't these two inherently at odds? Does a startups's search for an immediately viable business model distract it from a grander vision?

I'm not a huge fan of this question (and it's asked often). I think there's plenty of innovation still happening in internet/tech businesses, I think we just don't hear about it. Tech journalism seems to have gone from bad to worse, and you just don't hear a lot about innovative businesses.

For example: Simple is a VC-funded company that's starting a bank. A bank, for, chrissakes! Launching a startup into the most regulated, hot-button industry of today? That's innovative!

To clarify: I don't like the question because it assumes we have a good idea of "what's going on in the internet industry". Like I said, thanks to this weird human centipede we call 'tech journalism', I don't think we have a very good idea at all.