During yesterday's venture capital panel held at Play, The Berkeley Digital Media Conference, Hummer Winblad's Hank Barry quizzed the crowd on which consumer Internet startups they think are offering something compelling.

The audience of perhaps 60 was silent so I said a video monetization startup could change the game on consumer Internet giant Google in the same way that Google's text monetization engine powers its growth today. Barry wanted to know the name of one I had in mind and one of the panelists suggested I meant Revver. I said, "Yeah, a Revver that works better."

Someone else in the crowd chimed in with a suggestion that a startup he knew of developing an application for architects could do that. The panelists gently disavowed the participant of that dream. A mention of Second Life was dismissed by another panelist.

Later Barry mentioned SpotRunner, a video ad service backed by Index Ventures and Battery Ventures, as a startup that he admired. Looking back on the discussion, what I should have said in response to Barry's query is Songbird. The media player browser company is ambitious enough to change the way information and media on the web is consumed.

Barry commented: "I don't see people swinging for the fences anymore." August Capital's David Hornik noted that he thinks it's just as hard for one of his startups to achieve a single than it is for them to get a triple. I think his point, which is a good one, is that you never know that a Google/PayPal/YouTube/Skype is going to be that great an investment until it is.

For more on the Play conference, see:
Conference photos
PodTech.net

Tags: playconference, play+conference, vc, venture+capital