Lately there have been so many things I wanted to write about but felt it would be taken as a rant, so I left it alone. For example, the discussion on how many people are listening to podcasts. I would link to it but the actual report is subscription only ($249.00) and without the report, the discussion is inaccurate. Some say the report said 1 in 5,000 households listen to podcasts. Others say 1% of households. Either way one cuts it, the equivalent is millions of people with the numbers going up not down.
Another pointless discussion is the lack of business models for Web 2.0 businesses. I would expect this discussion from kids, but adults? Grow up.
YouTube was an example of a company without a business model. WRONG. YouTube originally had 3.5 million in funding to money wasn’t much of a worry at first. “YouTube has an advertising revenue model and plans to augment its infrastructure, as well as develop sales and marketing, to expand the company globally.”
Yeah, so much for no business model kiddies. What will be interesting is if all the people who have embedded videos on their sites will want ads appearing in the videos. Ads they have no control over. It makes more sense to have the ads in the videos since they can be viewed away from the YouTube site but only time will tell. Of course this will take some careful planning because usually people don’t like others making money off of their content without getting a piece of it. A video takes time and effort to make. Would you really want a company making money off of your video (especially if it is being downloaded thousands of times) in exchange for free bandwidth or would you being wondering if you could monetize it in some way? YouTube might not be as popular once the ads make it in. Matter of fact they might be better off offering a premium service like Flickr.
But they have a plan…get it?
I read some of those comments and I had to laugh.
People have to eat. Bills have to be paid. There is always a plan even if it is small like “I’ll pay for it myself for a year”. Weak thinking, but it’s a plan, isn’t it?
That’s because the idea was a great idea can lead to a multi-million dollar buy out. If they can just make it long enough to be bought out…
How about praying that lottery ticket will be a winner.
Would you have faith in a company that has no real business model? Imagine going into work and your boss says “We planned how to pay you for the next six months, maybe a year but we should be bought out by then”. Or trusting a company that hasn’t thought things through.
Thinking a business model is not needed shows an extreme lack of disrespect to the people they NEED to use their products.
Money to sustain has to come from somewhere. I think people went nuts with “the dream” because several web companies were bought out back to back. But I believe they were all started by people with money, were in the black and had some plan for revenues…whether it was made public or not.
Could it be that they aren’t creative enough to think of a way to monetize?
Don’t we all like to dream?
I just though of something. The people behind these companies do the majority of the work themselves, right? They don’t have to worry about paying employees, taxes, expenses, etc. Skilled people combine their skills.
That’s why the need to monetize might not be readily apparent. But it’s still stupid.