Online Business Models

News Corp.‘s The Times and NYTCo’s The New York Times each introduced online charges in summer 2010 and March 2011 respectively. So how are they each faring with subscriber acquisition?

From the article intro: Social Business isn’t a theory, buzz word or the “Next Big Thing”.

It’s simply a natural business evolution. It’s why companies like Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG and others have been in business and profitable for several decades, and in some cases, over 100 years.

They help companies change behavior, improve processes and expand into new markets because the dynamic nature of business is consistently changing.

And, many of the traditional management consulting firms are now expanding their service offerings to include “social” (fill in the blank) because organizations are now faced with new & improved challenges.

The sole focus of social business, social enterprise, enterprise 2.0 or whatever it’s going to be called tomorrow isn’t just about making business more social because it’s the “thing to do” or to collaborate for the sake of collaboration.

Sameer Patel’s latest post sums it up quite well (referencing Professor McAfee) … “organizations are looking to optimize their 9-5 in the face of market chaos, globalization, and seriously inefficient demand and supply chains, and yes, the changing dynamic of the prospect and customer, thanks to the social web.” 

 Read more: http://www.edelmandigital.com/2011/10/11/the-social-business-value-creation-model/

Not long ago I wrote about determining the value of your website or blog here on problogger.net.

Now that you know how a web property is or can be valued in the free market, in this article I want to discuss a practical strategy you can apply to increase the valuation of your web property.

The value of a website or blog, or any other business for that matter, is derived from its earnings or free cash flows before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—a term referred to as EBITDA in the professional sector.

A few months ago I tweeted this: “If I were a publisher I would either: a) pull my app from the App Store or b) invest all available cash in Apple stock.”

The latter piece of advice was probably pretty solid, if not very practical — Apple’s stock has been performing like no other in recent history.

But my former piece of advice for publishers – to pull their apps from the App Store – doesn’t seem to have resonated much, as many publishers keep pushing out their respective iPhone and iPad apps.

That said, I’m betting this trend is a short-term fad that will eventually reverse, and here’s why:

Adding a few visual game elements to a brand’s site in order to “gamify” a marketing strategy and increase engagement just isn’t enough. To be done right, gamification must take a behavior-focused approach.

For instance, by offering rewards for user actions, consumers are more likely to engage with a brand — that is, visit the site more often, register, linger and invite friends. But while gamification is a major buzzword among interactive marketers today, game use isn’t new.

So what’s making gamification so popular today? Consider these four factors.

From Flipboard and Aol Editions, to Ongo and LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) Today, the rise of tablets and apps is changing how we gather and consume content.

A couple of apps have grabbed the headlines in recent months.

Flipboard has closed over $60 million in funding and has a $200 million valuation. More recently, Zite was snapped up by CNN. Even Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is jumping on this bandwagon, based on reports of Google Propeller designed so Android and iOS users can curate content.

"Clearly education is billions (trillions!) of dollars. There are lots of opportunities, especially if you take a long term view of it and want to build something meaningful for the next 25 years.

However, don’t make the following mistakes:

a) Don’t believe that building a better product will make you successful. Delivering something for cheaper will. Even if that cheaper thing is lower quality. This is usually repugnant to most well-educated entrepreneurs.

b) Don’t start in developed, western countries because that’s where large, Internet businesses have been built. Asia is a much better education market if you want to target consumers.

c) Don’t take VC funding because the growth curve in your education business will not live up to VC expectations early on. Take angel money from people who want to make a difference in education...

d) Don’t target suburban or urban, middle class users with disposable income. You’ll build a niche business that can’t go mainstream. Target poor students in the US and get to charter schools who are desperate to try new things. Target families in China and India where a family will put down half of their monthly income on education. Or target people who really value education and will pay 10x more for something that is higher quality.

That’s where there are big businesses to be built and a willingness for new solutions."

A great and well-researched article. Highly recommended to anyone operating in this space.

It should come as no surprise that the continuing development of the internet is consistently resulting in significant shifts as to how businesses operate, consumers react and how products are bought.

Naturally, the very fundamental structures of business models are evolving in line with this, becoming far more flexible and innovative than has arguably ever been seen before.

Last year, I explored how the recession was effectively forcing organisations to get smarter and raise their levels of success. This year, I expect to see a greater emergence of innovative and disruptive business models, as well as new companies.

Already, there are lots of sites and services that currently exist, but I'm sure there's plenty more that will appear.

Here are some that have caught my eye recently...

Over the past year, online video consumption has soared threefold and it appears that this might be the year that the medium grows up and sees its revenues take off too (fingers crossed). This explains why in boardrooms large and small, everyone is trying to crystallize their online video strategy.