Flux Research: Online Business Models

Monetizing Documents

2009-06-17T23:28:00-04:00

This Business of Blogging:
Monetizing Documents: Ecommerce, Advertising, Paid Services

Valuing ExecTweets, Facebook Revenue, Target Google, MySpace Ads Down

2009-06-16T21:58:26-04:00

Most of the above links that aren't on Chas Note were discovered via Chas Note. That's why he's ranked 311th on the Ad Age Power 150! :)

EVE Online: Virtual World Bank Gets Fleeced

2009-06-15T20:24:25-04:00

From the NY Times, Rob Cox writes about A Virtual Bank With Real Woes, in the virtual world of EVE Online:

Central to Eve’s strategy, players develop economies within an "anything goes" free-market framework that allows them to expand their fleets, buy weaponry and equipment and bolster defenses. Indeed, Eve has 66 marketplaces for some 5,000 items, with more than a million transactions a day.

Enter Ebank, this virtual universe’s online bank. Because players often do not have the interstellar credits...they need to expand their fleets, an enterprising player created a bank that would accept deposits and lend to players who would pledge assets, like their spacecraft, as collateral.

The bank was a success....Ebank accumulated about 8.9 trillion ISK in deposits in 13,000 accounts belonging to 6,000 users. That was far more than it was able to lend out — there were around 1 trillion ISK of loans.

Somewhere along the way Ebank’s top executive, who went by the online handle Ricdic...made off with deposits, which he then sold for real cash to gamers on a sort of black-market exchange separate from Eve.

[Game developer] CCP kicked Ricdic out...Ebank has temporarily shut down while its board of directors...tries to sort out the mess. Depositors, meanwhile, appear to have pulled 5.5 trillion ISK of deposits.

Virtual world economies are pretty fascinating systems and definitely worth following. I think if such arenas interest you, you've just got to get in there and start learning the lay of the land. But, as the above tale indicates, bringing in knowledge from the outside world will be necessary if you plan on such ambitious schemes as virtual world financial services.

Disruption, MeDeploy, Long Tail, Free

2009-06-14T23:28:00-04:00

Web Tech Investments, Simon & Schuster on Scribd, Social Media ROI, Online Ad Market, Online Stationery

2009-06-13T10:08:08-04:00

Digg, IBM Social Network, Monetizing Growth, News Revenue, Arts Ad Network, Craigslist

2009-06-11T10:09:32-04:00

Links: Video, Advertising, Paid Content, Real Time Data, Domains, Social Network Valuation, Twitter +

2009-06-08T13:00:32-04:00

Links: Sponsored Posts, Pay Per Tweet, DevHub Platform

2009-06-07T10:24:04-04:00

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Links: GigaOM Pro, Internet Ad Revenue, Black Web 2.0

2009-06-06T02:59:25-04:00

Flux Research Update

2009-06-05T10:18:04-04:00

I'm focused elsewhere but I link to relevant posts and news articles on a regular basis and, moving forward, will be using Diigo to post links to this blog.

Links: Clay Shirky's Media Forecast, Digg Lay Offs

2009-06-05T02:32:23-04:00

This Business of Blogging: Web Publishing, Entrepreneurial Business Models, Microformats, Twitter Humor

2009-05-01T09:57:33-04:00

Here are the majority of recent posts at This Business of Blogging with the first two most relevant to the topic of online business models.

Founders At Work: Flexible Approaches to Entrepreneurial Business Models

Julia Angwin's Stealing MySpace & Expanded Notions of Web Publishing

Microformats Entering "Real Life" w/rel="me"

SuperNews!: Twouble with Twitters

Nanoblogging w/Flutter: Post-Twitter Mockumentary [+ Adocu]

Flux Research: Back on Hiatus

2009-04-06T13:42:49-04:00

So I've decided to focus on This Business Of Blogging for the moment in terms of writing about blogging and web publishing. This will include some discussion of online business models but not as I envisioned it here.

Stay tuned. There are scenarios that include the relaunch of this blog with a deep focus on online and mobile business models.

Flux Research & Related Projects Update

2009-04-04T20:19:13-04:00

For the tiny handful of folks paying attention, I want to update what's happening with this project.

I've been holding off on posting for a few related reasons. The kind of blog I'd want to do about online business models would involve fairly high volume posting and also require my shifting to Movable Type based on what I think would work best for a variety of reasons.

It would also require me to start tracking and processing news and information at a rate that's a little beyond me unless I go in for a really serious commitment. I've been considering doing that because what I envision would be very satisfying, I believe, both for myself and for those trying to do business online.

But I'm not sure I can make that commitment right now and it's suddenly complicated by the fact that I've started blogging about blogging and web publishing at This Business of Blogging (& Web Publishing).

That blog was launched to support some workshop activity I've been developing locally in Raleigh, NC and I was planning on occasionally dropping more general posts about some of the things I've learned about blogging on the way.

But I'm finding myself wanting to post there more frequently and realizing that some of what I would do here could also be done there without the high volume requirement I envision for Flux Research.

So I'm going to work on that blog's design a bit, do some more posting and see how that feels. That might also free this domain up for some more personal posting on the subject of change that has interested me since I first started reading about the late 60s and social change back when I was but a young lad in the early 70s.

I'm also developing some other projects that are low volume but require periodic attention, such as Hip Hop Research, an information resource focused on developing a book list of academic studies of hip hop. If I launch another high volume project in addition to ProHipHop, that would effectively kill these other projects and I'm not wanting to do that.

If I start doing online business model related posts at This Business of Blogging, I'll update here and probably make a final decision at that point.

If you're interested in this topic and want to drop me a line, please do so: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Otherwise, stay tuned and consider subscribing to This Business of Blogging since, no matter what I decide, I will be doing some related posts over there.

Hip Hop PR Wire Shuttered, Hip Hop Press: Releases Relaunches

2009-03-02T07:58:40-05:00

Hip Hop PR Wire, a site I launched as an attempt to build with free services and then add paid services, has folded.

In its wake, Hip Hop Press has relaunched with the following subcategories:

Hip Hop Press Releases
RnB Press Releases
Urban Arts and Fashion Press Releases
Music Industry Press Releases

Though the closing of Hip Hop PR Wire was billed as, in part, fallout from the recession, the reality is that other forces were also at play that won't be discussed publicly. It's important to remember when evaluating companies that usually we won't have the full story and, though we can sometimes fill in the gaps, phenomenon like "The Recession" are often used as cover to justify needed changes, such as reducing the workforce.

Fortunately, all is not lost, as the expansion of Hip Hop Press and future developments there are and will be based on lessons learned while building Hip Hop PR Wire.

The struggle continues!