It wasn’t so long ago that Google was seen as a, if not the key driving force of innovation and new business models on the web – and with good reason. But one of the more interesting trends to watch in the Web 2.0 is not what Google is doing, but rather the variety of new business models that are emerging to attack Google head on using collaborative technologies and the power of community.

For example, last night Powerset came out of “stealth mode” to unveil their new search platform – one that’s designed to leverage the wisdom of the crowds for development. To quote co-founder and COO Steve Newcomb:

“Imagine a mashup between Facebook, Digg and Google Apps, but you get to participate in the building of the products that sit on top of our platform. You log into a social network, like you would Facebook, and you get certified to be a Powerlabber. Once certified you can join different interest groups, such as travel, and participate in idea and mashup competitions. QA is embedded and its all bloggable.”

“Instead of being stealth mode, we are being more open than any other company has been in the launch process. If we screw up and it’s not going well, we will take the hit, and if it goes well we take that. It’s a wisdom of the crowd idea of competitions. We will build the winners and widgets for Facebook, blogs, and others”

Imagine indeed. This could be a very big deal, and Powerset is not alone in exploring this area - Jimbo Wales’ Search Wikia engine is going down a similar path. In turn, it’s at least worth wondering whether one or some new players in the Web 2.0 could eventually leave Google behind -and/or whether Google will ever respond with more collaborative, community based offerings of their own.

I certainly think that they should – which is why when Eric Schmidt asked me a little while ago what Google should be doing differently, I suggested they needed to push even harder into applying mass collaboration to their business model – including their core search capability. The full video of that discussion is available here.