How can I tell? Take a look at Google’s announcement today of big investments in clean energy. Big Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins also recently announced that Al Gore would join their ranks to help spur investments in clean energy startups.

We are more than two years off from News Corp.’s purchase of MySpace and a year from Google’s purchase of YouTube. While there have been continued acquisitions and investments into the space they are surely getting smaller. Some might point to all the hysteria over Facebook and their mysteriously high valuation as a sign that the good times are alive and well.

We’ll here’s a bold prediction. Facebook will be the WebVan of Web2.0. Investors will put in a ton of cash and get nothing in return. People are so high on the fact that Facebook has sold out all of their users to marketers. But in spite of what Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook has not reinvented media or advertising. Facebook technology is not revolutionary. And neither is any other technology being offered by Web2.0 outfits. It may be fun. It may be useful. It may help people to network. But it isn’t going to change the world either.

I for one am not sad that the money flow is turning to a trickle. I believe that we need a new wave of innovation in the United States. We need one that goes way beyond friending, comments, ratings and short messages. Too many of these startups have decided to take shortcuts, throwing up sites with old features with new names and logos. If I hear someone say “Its twitter for…”, ‘Its digg for…” or its “Myspace or Facebook for…” one more time I think I’m gonna puke.

That’s not to say that people shouldn’t start new social networks or other internet ventures. They should use what we’ve got and do with it what they like. But they shouldn’t think for one second that they are innovators when they launch one of these sites. And they shouldn’t expect that investors are going to throw money at them. Those days are over…for now at least. The smart investors are spending money on technology that matters.