So it was with mixed feelings that I discovered today that there is in fact another 'thing' called Robot Barnes. I suspect and pray this is the last we hear of it.
There seems to be a great deal of angst about how these 2 big boys are going to make money. It's incredible how massive they have both become, but there isn't really a precedent for how 'social media' is supposed to pay for itself. It's not straight 'media', so it's unlikely to be just through simple advertising.
Straight media, when it's passively digested, is a ripe opportunity to sell eyeballs, but there's a lot more happening when users are on Facebook and Twitter. Ads would need to work a lot harder to cut through, and despite the targeting possibilities (age, gender, interests) available, these don't appear to help.
So how about a subscription?
Obviously that's a dirty word that hasn't really worked before online, so why should it work here?
Well I can see that
subscribe to cable or mobile, or internet
subsidised by isps?
freemium model
$300m 2008 - more than 150m active users
Some users could not live with out it - charge more
Flickr, remember the milk
how much is a user worth?
http://mashable.com/2009/01/16/tweetdeck-funding/
