Comments on: Thoughts on monetizing online communities

By: Planner Reads » Blog Archive » Thoughts on the future of content

Planner Reads » Blog Archive » Thoughts on the future of content — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:57:02 +0000

[...] (PS – Social media is not the same as social networking, although some rules still apply) In this post that I wrote a few months ago, I expounded on the premise that success often follows social networks [...]

By: Thoughts on the future of content — The Future of Content

Thoughts on the future of content — The Future of Content — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:45:04 +0000

By: Y Combinator’s Request for Startups: The future of content and journalism - Constant Beta

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:54:48 +0000

By: Constant Beta | Why social networking sites need a business model first

Constant Beta | Why social networking sites need a business model first — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:26:57 +0000

[...] have written previously about monetizing online communities. To sum it up, my point was that communities do not convert into paying customers unless the [...]

By: Jinal Shah

Jinal Shah — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:54:43 +0000

Deepali – Hi! You make some very interesting points. actually, I’m eager to see how Twitter figures out its rev. streams as well. Esp. after they turned down Facebook. Regd. communities– they existed on the net even before social networking (forums, diaries, livejournal etc) and they existed purely around a common goal or purpose. So it will be interesting to see if we crack the code on monetizing them.

MBH – Hello to you too! I’d love to hear what you think.

By: MHB

MHB — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:24:20 +0000

great post. it’s started up some cogs and wheels and levers in my brain…

By: Deepali

Deepali — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:57:32 +0000

Monetizing communities is such a big issue today.

I have been involved in 2 communities which were for branding purpose and were getting money from the company owning the brand but neither lasted too long mainly cause those brands stopped the budgets. Unfortunately brands want too much to be a quick fix online.

I am not too sure how you go beyond advertising, subscription or payment for premium features etc for revenue generation for sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. Eventually funding from VC or parent company is going to dry up. Look at Lively. I’m actually glad Google decided to shut down a venture of theirs that isn’t working rather than pushing it a lot more.

Totally agree that few communities that are free will have similar success if they change their model after being in existence for a while but I don’t know how much success a community will have when you pay from the start (unless it in some ways guarantees some return value to the members). And what do you do when you charge for services but there are others offering the same service for free?

I am actually waiting to see how Twitter decide to generate money. I personally don’t believe it will be something new. If they decide to go with ads I don’t know how they will manage to make it contextual. Maybe it could target demographically.

I am all for advertising revenue going to communities but there has to be the right sort of advertising/marketing on these communities. It will keep everyone happy if ads are better targeted to the users on these sites.

I’d love to see a new model but I personally can’t see beyond what is already out there.

By: Jinal Shah

Jinal Shah — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:01:03 +0000

Josh – Will check those out. thanks for the perspective.

Ram Jaane – Very interesting take – but apart from selling to one of the big comapanies – do online communities have an exit strategy?

Gautam – Alas, not this time!

By: Gautam

Gautam — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:53:45 +0000

Am in Delhi now.. if you come to Mumbai via Delhi we can meet

By: _ram-jaane'

_ram-jaane' — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:37:30 +0000

If we take twitter as an example (simply because it is so far entirely advert-free). I think they have the scope to make money from it, but currently no clue how they even survive.

With API’s we have others like slandr.net making money from ad’s where twitter isn’t. I find this odd. Given time it would not surprise me if they start charging for the use of their API & I think this is okay, even if they put up adverts in my timeline I don’t think it would bother me much, but charging me for the service I’m used to would be a total no-no.

As for business plans, I don’t think they would be at a loss by not planning ahead. In the early stages, throwing prototypes out there to see how people get on with them is far more important. No point over-planning something that’ll be dead in a month or two.

Sure, once the user-base is flowing, maybe they should start planning, but by this point they are successful enough to wash their hands of the whole thing (sell it on to some BigWig Google / Microsoft type), in which case from their initial outset, they’ve suceeded.

my $0.02

silent salutes
_ram-jaane’