Niche Research - where and how to start?

I am interested in learning about niche research.
Pointers on how to or which are the good ebooks, reports or products for this purpose will be much appreciated.

Thank you.

1. Use google keyword tool
2. Filter out general terms and terms with too much competition
3. Narrow it down to long tail keywords
4. Check which one have less competition and have potential to be monetized

Basically this is how i do it.

I think a good marketer is always aware of what is going on in the real world.

It is important to find out what the top-selling products are and what needs people have that aren't going fulfilled. Use sites like Google Trends and Lycos Pulse to determine what niche you want to tackle. Also check out the top searches on Ebay.

For instance, if you notice some very particular brand of camera is selling well on eBay, you'll want to start a marketing campaign focused on that particular camera and grab as many of the top spots on the first page of Google for it that you can.

You'll have your affiliate link to eBay or another one of the sites that sells this camera on all of your Google pages, they will likely be Web 2.0 websites.

Hopefully this gets you thinking.