AXA challenges Google's business model

Grok Headline matches for AXA challenges Google's business model

French lawsuit challenges heart of
Google's business model

French lawsuit challenges heart of
Google's business model 04/25/2004 01:50 PM
AP via New Jersey Online Apr 25 2004 6:41PM GMT

Google's business model challenged by
French insurance giant's law suit

Google's business model challenged by
French insurance giant's law suit 04/25/2004 12:31 PM
Vancouver Sun Apr 25 2004 5:11PM GMT

Google's Gmail faces trademark, privacy
challenges

Google's Gmail faces trademark, privacy
challenges 04/09/2004 03:55 PM
The gigabyte storage capacity and long memory of Google Inc.'s planned Web-based e-mail service are making it a big target for privacy campaigners -- and the name, Gmail, could soon be the subject of a trademark dispute, too.

Google's photo software challenges
costly rivals

Google's photo software challenges
costly rivals 02/01/2005 09:14 PM
Delawareonline.com - Tue Feb 1, 10:32 am GMT

RSS Ads - The Business Model for RSS

RSS Ads - The Business Model for RSS 01/26/2004 02:19 AM
RSS Ads - The Business Model for RSS .. RSSAds .. Quote

rssads.com
track this site | 4 links

Business Process Outsourcing Challenges
Web Hosting

Business Process Outsourcing Challenges
Web Hosting 08/20/2004 02:31 PM
theWHIR Aug 20 2004 7:13PM GMT

Into the valley of the Business Model -
yee shall go

Into the valley of the Business Model -
yee shall go 04/14/2005 03:33 PM

MeetUp is now charging for organizing MeetUps.

$19 a month. I wonder how they came up with that number?

Jason Lefkowitz reports his feelings on this.

One good thing they did - they put their faces next to what they describe as "the bad news". Me - I don't consider it bad news.

There's a time for every social experiment to grow up, smell the mustard and get real. MeetUp has - congreats!

Overstock's Business Model

Overstock's Business Model 02/17/2004 01:15 PM
How does the company make money selling books and CDs at cost?

"Business Model" Explained

"Business Model" Explained 06/24/2004 08:07 AM
Two companies might do the same thing, but with very different business models.

Plaxo Business Model

Plaxo Business Model 05/24/2004 12:50 PM
Plaxo is out trying to explain they have a business model and are addressing privacy concerns. A premium service at $20/month that includes support and, well, what else they are not saying or don't know yet. Techdirt: They're basically saying...

Plaxo Does Have A Business Model... But
Not Really

Plaxo Does Have A Business Model... But
Not Really 05/24/2004 03:05 AM
I'll admit that I have not been kind to Plaxo in the past. Ever since the service was first announced, it sounded like a bubble era pointless dot com. There was a lot of hype about the young founder (previously founded Napster!) and the "service" itself didn't seem like much of a product. At most, it was a feature of a larger product, and that larger product might just turn out to be something like Microsoft Outlook. If the system was remotely useful, you would think that Microsoft would just build it in to Outlook. However, it didn't even seem that useful. If anything, I expected it to be annoying - and has it ever been annoying. I now block all Plaxo requests, but for a while, the amount of Plaxo spam was ridiculous. Then, of course, there's the privacy question. While Plaxo now goes to great lengths to swear up and down that they keep your info private, they don't seem to understand the real privacy complaint: when your friends give your address to some 3rd party service, are they violating your privacy? It's a question that's not entirely clear. In the meantime, this was all made worse by the fact that Plaxo still didn't have anything remotely resembling a business model (shades of the bubble era again...). Well, now they claim they've solved that issue, and have announced that their business model is a $20/year paid version for which you'll get such great features as... well, they actually don't seem to know yet. You will get better customer support though. It always worries me when companies decide that better customer support is a premium "feature," because they've just set up the incentives to mean that they give the absolute worst customer support to anyone not in that tier. This doesn't seem particularly compelling. They're basically saying their new business model is that they'll annoy me less if I pay? No thanks...

Plaxo's business model

Plaxo's business model 05/24/2004 01:46 AM

Start-up Plaxo sketches out business plan [CNET News.com - The Net]

OK - so now we know.

Whenever I've received an invitation to join Plaxo or to update my profile info, I've used as an excuse - the nebulous answers that Plaxo has given in the past as to their business model.

Well I guess I'll have to find a different excuse now.

I actually like the business model - charge for more advanced features - but the only feature they mentioned in this article was "better customer support".  That actually sounds like a charge for support" business model.  HHmmm maybe they should talk to Dave Sifry about that.

But then again - they only want $20 a year.  Geesh.  It costs more to look at naked pictures.  I guess they think lots of people will sign-up - but if it's like any other service, they'll only convert 5%.

So what's 5% of 2M?  100k users.  Times $20 a year.  That $2M a year.

Geesh hasn't Plaxo raised like over $20M now - or something like that?

What's wrong with the math here?

The Blogware business model

The Blogware business model 07/07/2004 02:41 AM

I've been trying to get to know Roland Tanglao and Boris Mann and their company Streamline. Here's an interesting post I found on Roland's blog about Blogware's business model..

Here's Roland......

A must read for prospective Blogware resellers and for bloggers and people who don't understand why Blogware is not being heavily promoted by Tucows. Summary: it's all about the resellers. Resellers made Tucows #2 in domain registration and similarly resellers will make Blogware a big player in the hosted blog space.



From An Open Letter to Blog Sceptic:

QUOTE

5/3/2/1. Ditch the resellers/launch a hosted version/offer to specific verticals/promote it...

Never gonna happen.

Here's why: Internet services providers represent the most powerful distribution channel on the internet. No single company can compete with the marketing muscle of 30,000 ISPs** who sit right in front of end-users and assist them in making critical technology choices and guide them as they dive into the internet - usually for the first time. No other channel can put you in front of individuals and the Fortune 500 simultaneously and no channel can better address the fickle needs of their local markets in a more appropriate fashion.

To get a better sense of this, take a look at our track record with domain names. In 1997, we were (according to the most liberal definitions) #85 in the domain name registration market. Today we are solidly #2 and we've been there for a couple of years. How did we get here? We dealt exclusively with internet services providers to the exclusion of all other market opportunities and we nailed their service requirements. By choosing and sticking to our distribution model very early in the game (some would argue that it chose us) we were able to focus on very specific attributes of our products and processes and build some truly excellent structures around everything. In other words, because we weren't trying to be all things to all customers, we were able to do some very amazing things with some very specific customer segments. And they responded in spades.

Our resellers kick serious a*s in the market place. This because the Tucows way of doing things gives them  the luxury of being able to focus on very specific and important things. Think of every other blogging company out there. They each have to a) be technical experts, b) be sales experts and c) be marketing experts just to one unit to a customer. Now take a look at the symbiotic nature of the relationship between Tucows and its direct customers. Our resellers have to be sales & marketing experts and develop strong customer service skills and Tucows has to focus on maintaining world-class technical services. Who would you bet on, the jack-of-all-trades or the team of specialists?

The downside to this approach is that it lacks the glitz and glam that retail oriented services employ. You will never see a full out PR blitz from Tucows and Blogware will never be a household name.  All wasted money. Remember, we're not the marketing brains in this relationship. We're the technical muscle.

Does that mean that our resellers are idly sitting by doing nothing? Nope. Right now, they are working on developing the right messages to direct at very specific markets - some are doing the institutional angle, some are going after telecommunications firms, others are targetting specific home-user verticals and others still looking to make quick wins at the expense of those with existing market share... And what I've seen so far looks great. Think of this as true "end-to-end marketing" Marketing at the edges. Clue-train compatible distribution. Teamwork. Focus. Whatever you call it, it works.

UNQUOTE

A new business model, driven by consumer
needs

A new business model, driven by consumer
needs 02/15/2004 01:03 AM
Boston Globe Feb 15 2004 5:15AM GMT

New Business Model, Or Smoke And
Mirrors?

New Business Model, Or Smoke And
Mirrors? 04/08/2005 06:26 PM
Jonathan Schwartz of Sun is out giving his talk again about how subscription fees are the way of the future for buying anything. One of his favorite examples (he's used it for quite some time) is that people will buy cars the way they buy mobile phones, where the device/car itself is free or close to fee, but there's a regular subscription fee that's locked in (he also likes to talk about how people will download "horn-tones" for their car, but that's a different story). He goes on to point out that for a car, this fee would be $220 -- noting that the carmakers have already thought about this. Beyond asking the obvious question (um which car are we talking about here -- because I imagine that a BMW is going to cost me more per month than a Hyundai), isn't this already how many people buy cars? It's called a loan or a lease. They buy the car with a little bit of money down, but pay regularly to cover the rest of the cost of the car. In fact, I'm sure, for some people and some cars, the amount is somewhere around $220. So, this isn't particularly amazing. It's not even new. It's just taking an existing business model and changing what you call everything. Who knew it was so easy to be considered a visionary?

Online Business Model for a Band?

Online Business Model for a Band? 04/02/2005 04:02 PM

an alternate business model for gmail

an alternate business model for gmail 04/14/2004 05:12 PM
next, jason's going to start selling blogger accounts

The business model of the funny pages

The business model of the funny pages 12/04/2003 08:23 PM
When I was in college in the early 90s (B.W. -- before web), I used to subscribe to the daily newspaper just to get my comics fix every morning (back when Bill Waterson, Gary Larson, and Berkeley Breathed were king). Then the web came along and I had to suffer through the only (unfunny) cartoonist to embrace the web. But not anymore. With stuff like Comics-via-RSS and Comictastic I can fire up an app and start laughing every morning. I doubt I ever buy a newspaper again for the funny pages, and on top of that, these even let me avoid the lame ones I don't care about.

A Business Model For WiFi Aggregation

A Business Model For WiFi Aggregation 01/09/2004 09:50 PM
Robert X. Cringely's latest column discusses his idea for a killer WiFi aggregator business model that makes some sense - but could be very difficult from some significant reasons. He correctly points out the problems with current WiFi aggregator business models: they have way too little coverage and way too many players have their hands in the pie. For each dollar spent at a hotspot, a portion needs to go to the hotspot owner, the owner of the network and the aggregator (and potentially others) - and there just isn't that much money being spent at hotspots in the first place. His solution is that we need more hotspots, and the way to get more hotspots is to give away the equipment free. Basically, have a company that will give you free WiFi equipment in exchange for adding your hotspot to their network and giving you free access to the entire network. This way, he believes, an aggregator would quickly get to one million hotspots and pretty much guarantee the necessary level of coverage. The money, then, would come from others who pay the subscription fee to get on the network - and since the coverage is so great, and the aggregator no longer needs to share that revenue with the hotspots, people will be willing to pay up. Maybe. I'm certainly a fan of leveraging "free" in a promotion to build a business model, but not when that "free" is very costly. In order to get this going, the company would need to give away those million access points (and, probably, handle tech support for them) before they start making money. While you can bet they'd get a volume discount (and APs are getting cheaper every day), it's still a pretty big capital chunk to eat. Then, there are two other big problems I see. First, which he brushes off, most internet providers say sharing your connection is a violation of terms of service. Sure, there's the Speakea sy exception, but it's still not too common, and I'm not so convinced (as Cringely is) that they'll just rollover when they find out what's happening. The second problem is much more fundamental. I now have two choices if I want to use this fairly vast network of access points: (1) pay a monthly fee or (2) offer to host my own hotspot - where I get free equipment and free service. Guess what I'm going to do? Is there any reason not to get their free equipment just to get free access everywhere else? Who are the suckers who are actually going to pay for this service instead of just signing up to be a provider?

Meetup About Business Model Lessons

Meetup About Business Model Lessons 04/13/2005 02:55 PM
Meetup Inc. become something of an internet darling during the US Presidential campaigns, after people started using it for political organizing. The concept was straight-forward. Use the web to find like-minded individuals in a certain area who could (yup) "meet up" in person. What was unclear from the beginning, though, was how Meetup was ever going to make money. Originally, the plan was to get money out of the venues where the various meetups occurred. Apparently, that didn't work out, and now, Meetup is making news for its decision to charge each "group" $19/month to keep going. They certainly expect to lose many of their groups, and lots of people are already noting that the price seems quite steep for what were mostly small, informal gatherings. The real issue, though, is that it looks like Meetup has forgotten the first rule of internet-based business models: don't charge for something that was free before. It's very, very difficult to make that work (there are a few small exceptions). Generally speaking, though, if people expect something to be free, suddenly turning around and charging for it is seen as swiping the rug out from under them. They embraced your offering, in part, because it was free. You can charge for new and additional services -- but pissing off most of your users with surprise fees, after being sold on the free idea, tends to come back to bite many companies that have tried it. If anything, it tends to encourage competition to come in and offer what you used to offer... for free.

IM Interoperability: It's the Business
Model, Stupid

IM Interoperability: It's the Business
Model, Stupid 08/09/2004 11:40 PM
Microsoft's recent deal with the three major IM services demonstrates that business dealings, not competing technology protocols, are driving the big battle for interoperability.

Attacking the Spammer Business Model

Attacking the Spammer Business Model 11/17/2003 07:47 PM
Stephen Samuel asks: "Spammers spam because it's an 'easy way to make money'. They send out millions of spams knowing that 99.995% of them will be ignored, but ...

VOIP will change the business model of
the Bells

VOIP will change the business model of
the Bells 11/13/2003 03:08 AM
It may not happen this year or next but VOIP is going to start having a serious impact on the...

The Phantom Looking More Real, New
Business Model Still Questionable

The Phantom Looking More Real, New
Business Model Still Questionable 05/10/2004 01:30 PM
As expected, Infinium Labs is using E3 as its coming out party to prove that they do, in fact, have a product. You may recall this is the company that has faced lots of doubt about whether or not its gaming console really existed. The company started to look a bit more respectable by hiring a CEO who helped develop the X-Box, but quickly lost a lot of goodwill by suing one of the sites that questioned the legitimacy of the company. Now, they're making a big push to prove that they exist. Wired News has an article about the company saying that instead of pushing it as competition to gaming consoles, they're targeting "occasional" or "lapsed" gamers and offering the system as a service. That is, if you agree to pay $30/month for two years you get the hardware "free" and access to the basic level of downloadable games they offer. Of course, it's not really free, but the hardware fee is baked into that monthly fee. Of course, it looks like they still don't have any publishers officially signed up. The games they're displaying at E3 are only for display at E3 and might not actually be available when the device/service launches in November. As anyone in the gaming business will tell you, if you don't have good publishers signed up early, the gaming device will fail. Infinium seems to believe they'll be able to sign up enough publishers now that they can demonstrate the device publicly and build some buzz. You'll also notice that the box looks entirely different than it did just a few months back when people were doubting that it really existed. More importantly, you have to wonder about the business model and the target market. They say they don't want hardcore gamers, because they'll already have a console and a PC with all the games they want. However, you have to wonder why the occasional or lapsed gamer wants to pay $30/month if they don't really play games that often. On top of this, the games they'll offer at that basic level of service are older games. As Infinium points out, this may help get publishers on board by offering them a new revenue stream for old games, but that also means that your offering users old games. I guess they're hoping that these lapsed video gamers won't notice that they're playing old games, but it doesn't seem like the most compelling pitch to a lapsed gamer: come back to gaming, but get locked into a two year, $30/month contract, and we'll let you play a few old games that you can probably pick up for a couple dollars in the bargain bin!

LinkedIn finally launches their business
model

LinkedIn finally launches their business
model 02/01/2005 08:42 PM

After 18 months - at 1.7 people Reid Hoffman is finally revealing his plan in a preview of his LinkedInsight jobs system.

Good luck Reid!

Model your business processes using
using BPML (XML Journal)

Model your business processes using
using BPML (XML Journal) 07/17/2002 01:55 AM

All Business: Can Google's IPO go?

All Business: Can Google's IPO go? 08/15/2004 06:02 AM
Naplesnews.com - Sun Aug 15, 04:23 am GMT

Suit targets heart of Google business
model

Suit targets heart of Google business
model 04/25/2004 11:33 PM
Boston Globe Apr 26 2004 4:17AM GMT

Strong business model key to Dell's
striking evolution

Strong business model key to Dell's
striking evolution 09/22/2004 06:36 AM
Financial Post Sep 22 2004 10:26AM GMT

YOUR FAILED BUSINESS MODEL IS NOT MY
PROBLEM sticker/tee design

YOUR FAILED BUSINESS MODEL IS NOT MY
PROBLEM sticker/tee design 04/12/2005 11:50 AM
Cory Doctorow: This sticker/t-shirt design -- YOUR FAILED BUSINESS MODEL IS NOT MY PROBLEM, with a Creative Communist logo -- is pretty sweet. Link (via Akma)

Seeing the graphs from the trees - the
business model of the web is the same as
its underlying structure

Seeing the graphs from the trees - the
business model of the web is the same as
its underlying structure 03/14/2005 04:33 PM
It seems like a small thing, but day after day I can't help thinking that there is a distinct pattern...

Micropayment Company Adjust Business
Model Away From The Internet

Micropayment Company Adjust Business
Model Away From The Internet 06/28/2004 05:22 AM
We've discussed multiple times why micro payments are overhyped for content online. Despite being told repeatedly by companies in the space that this time will be different, it looks like one such company (Peppercoin - which has been one of the loudest defenders of the "age of micropayments") is already discovering they need to adjust their business model. The cool thing about the way Peppercoin works is that it basically aggregates a bunch of purchases and creates a "representative sample" to lower the transaction fee paid to the credit card provider. The problem with using Peppercoin for internet content is the fact that most people don't want to pay for content -- especially when there are other options and the mental transaction costs are high. However, that doesn't change the fact that Peppercoin reduces credit card fees -- which is useful if only applied to a market where people already are willing to pay for things. So, that appears to be where Peppercoin is headed: away from internet transactions (though, they still claim that this will be a big space) and towards real world situations where tiny transactions rule, such as arcades.

eBay's Business Model Patent Mess
Returns

eBay's Business Model Patent Mess
Returns 03/17/2005 03:26 AM
In 2002, someone who claimed he came up with the idea for online auctions and patented it before eBay existed sued the company for patent infringement. As we pointed out at the time, this was exactly what patents were not supposed to do. Here's a case where different people came up with similar ideas. One actually did something with it and built a real company, while the other didn't do anything with it at all, other than run to the patent office. Yet, the company that did something gets sued. That discourages companies from actually innovating. The companies that really do something open themselves up to lawsuits. While a court later tossed out the online auction patent for being too vague, they did award the guy nearly $30 million for his patent on "direct buying" online (yes, he actually patented that). Both sides appealed, and the court has found that, not only did eBay violate the direct buy patent, but it's bringing back the online auction patent as well, saying a lower court needs to check that out again.

Will .jobs Domain Yank The Business
Model Out From Online Job Boards?

Will .jobs Domain Yank The Business
Model Out From Online Job Boards? 04/08/2005 06:26 PM
It already seems like the way ICANN is dribbling out new top level domains is somew hat pointless other than as a way to increase revenue for ICANN. We already were wondering what the possible reasoning was behind a .jobs TLD, as there was no indication anywhere that anyone was having any particular trouble finding where a company lists their job openings. Combined with some alrea dy questionable moves by ICANN in assigning who gets to control these new top level domain names, and the whole thing seems pretty sketchy. With today's official approval of both .jobs and .travel, though, some are wondering if .jobs will end up causing problems for online job boards. With a designated area to post jobs on an individual site, it will be that much easier for someone to create a meta-search engine of job listings (some of which already exist), and companies won't feel the need to post their jobs to the same sites as before. Of course, that's only if the job boards view their main purpose to be hosting job listings. It's not hard to see how they can (and should) offer much more beyond that in terms of helping people find the right job and manage their careers more effectively, while also helping companies target their open job leads more efficiently. As long as the job sites know how to do that, then the .jobs domain shouldn't have much of an effect -- other than making a bunch of companies feel they need to shell out for yet another domain that they probably don't need.

ASC X12 releases new XML reference
model, EDI transaction (E-Business
Standards Today)

ASC X12 releases new XML reference
model, EDI transaction (E-Business
Standards Today) 10/31/2002 01:28 PM

* Yahoo-Kimo plans shift to fee-based
business model

* Yahoo-Kimo plans shift to fee-based
business model 12/26/2003 11:28 PM
Taipei Times Online Dec 26 2003 10:41PM ET

ASC X12 releases draft XML reference
model (E-Business Standards Today)

ASC X12 releases draft XML reference
model (E-Business Standards Today) 07/24/2002 01:00 PM

New X12 reference model specifies
structure for semantics in XML business
messages (WebServices.org)

New X12 reference model specifies
structure for semantics in XML business
messages (WebServices.org) 11/04/2002 11:43 AM

Colorado Springs Utilities Adopts MWH
Soft ArcGIS-Centric Technology to Meet
Business Challenges

Colorado Springs Utilities Adopts MWH
Soft ArcGIS-Centric Technology to Meet
Business Challenges 12/24/2004 12:19 PM
MWH Soft, Inc., a leading global provider of water resources applications software, today announced that the Colorado Springs Utilities (Springs Utilities) in Colorado has opted to simultaneously deploy multiple licenses of MWH Soft's premier InfoWater Suite software to drive its comprehensive water facilities master plan. [PRWEB Dec 24, 2004]
Grok Description matches for AXA challenges Google's business model
GrokA matches for AXA challenges Google's business model

AXA challenges Google's business model

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