Archive for the ‘Business models’ Category
Virtual Goods Worth More than Real News: Curmudgeon 08/27/2010
in 2014 Americans will be spending $1.5 billion on online newspaper subscriptions and $5 billion on imaginary objects. Maybe I find this ridiculous because I’m a reporter and my sympathies lie with the newspaper industry.
via MediaPost Publications Virtual Goods Worth More than Real News: Curmudgeon 08/27/2010.
So this does sound like “amusing ourselves to death,” “fiddling while Rome burns,” doesn’t it? Folks will spend money in virtual worlds, to buy everything from a hot avatar to a pig for their Farmville, but they can’t or won’t pay for news. Hmm. Time for some kind of new model. Perhaps that ought to be a model of civic engagement or citizenship education, not necessarily another business plan.
WordPress Themes Must be GPL
- Image via CrunchBase
This is a simple explanation of how GNU’s GPL works for programs like WordPress, Drupal, etc. which are open source, but nonetheless licensed. It also contains a very clear explanation of why the php must be GPL, but also, how that doesn’t mean a theme or other GPL product can’t be commercial.
Please remember that this is about copyright and respecting the license that the WordPress copyright holders have chosen. It isn’t about money. Premium themes are fine. It is non-GPL themes (a.k.a. proprietary themes) that are the issue. Also realize that WordPress cannot change its license. It is forever locked to the GPL (version 2). Arguments along the lines of “WordPress should allow proprietary themes because of X,” are pointless. We are as much bound by the license as theme developers!
via Why WordPress Themes are Derivative of WordPress « Mark on WordPress.
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- Thesis WordPress Theme is now Split GPL licensed (shoutmeloud.com)
- Crisis Averted: Thesis Submits To WordPress GPL (blogherald.com)
- WordPress Creator GPL Says WP Template Must Be GPL’d (yro.slashdot.org)
- Mark Jaquith: Why WordPress Themes are Derivative of WordPress (markjaquith.wordpress.com)
- Thesis Theme Goes GPL (blogigs.com)
WBEZ behind the scenes in the newsroom
City Room: Episode 1 from WBEZ on Vimeo.
Sustainable Business Model? Look to WoW
WoW grew quickly at first, from one million subscribers in February 2005, to five million subscribers by December 2005, then eight million by January 2007, and 12 million by January 2009. And that was the peak: since then WoW seems to be holding steady at roughly 11-12 million subscribers around the world — a small fraction compared to Facebook, which currently has a global audience upwards of 475 million. At a time when any social network with less than double-digit growth in users is deemed a failure, one might conclude that WoW had run its course. But oh, one would be wrong.
Because WoW’s user base is highly engaged, completing some 16.6 million quests and bidding in 3.5 million online auctions every day. And WoW subscribers actually pay to play, ponying up a monthly fee of $14.95, month after month, year after year, to fight those orcs or elves or what have you. According to the company, 4.5 million subscribers in Europe and North America alone produced $800 million in revenue in 2009. Meanwhile, server costs come to about $140,000 per day, or just over $50 million a year, and I can’t imagine other expenses come to much more than another $50 million… so that leaves $700 million of gravy.
via MediaPost Publications WoW Reaping Quiet Bonanza 07/02/2010.
Diaspora and How We Will Make Money
What’s interesting is that this underlines the commonality between writing songs and writing code, and how the same approach to financing can be used for both (something I've written about before.) I think that’s important, because it offers a new way of getting free software projects off to a good start. Rather than just hacking and hoping, projects that serve a real need can follow Diaspora's example and seek funding from the start, offering a range of rewards.
via Diaspora: The Future of Free Software Funding? – Community – ComputerworldUK.
The writer discusses Diaspora (note: I am one of the investors in Diaspora) which aims to be a privacy-safe Facebook-like site, once it is up and running. The folks behind it (NYU students) asked for pledges to make $10,000 but ended up getting more than $100,000 in pledges.
They had levels of pledging, with different premiums associated with each level. What a model that indicates there are ways to do Open Sourced work and still get paid.
