How can Hollrr.com pay bloggers for spotting new products?
Hollrr.com is a very interesting business concept and that for many reasons. First of all, Hollrr gives regular consumers more tools and power in the business ecosystem. Secondly, it sets a perfect example how businesses are evolving when embracing new currency transactions as descibed in our 10 building blocks model. The most important transaction in their system is ‘reputation for exposure’. Below you see a visual mapping of Hollrr’s 4-player business model. Like always we show only the most relevant transactions and players. This allows us to better compare and transfer business concepts.
How does Hollrr.com work?
This is how hollrr.com tries to give more power to the consumer: Early-adopters try to spot new products and they will actively spread the word about their ‘discovery’. By using trackable widgets, tweets and blogpost they will notify their tribe. A consumer becomes thereby an influencer. This the exposure aspect we talked about.
When later on the product becomes a success, the tribe around that person will recognize that person as the one that was able to spot the product early stage. When someone becomes an expert in discovering potential successful products, they will earn the respect of their tribe. This is the reputation part of the transaction.
But Hollr.com goes one step further. Once the spotted product has become a success, they will reward the whole tribe that spotted and supported the product. The earlier a person talked about the product, the more money they will receive.
But how do they make money?
But who’s bringing in the money to pay those early-adopters and influencers. Hollrr.com gives one solution on their website. Product owners (companies) can add their products to the database of hollrr and pre-pay for clicks, or somehow they can join an affiliate program. But no further details are given so that leaves me with the following problem.
A small starting company that developed a new product, often doesn’t have the resources to pay services like hollrr for pre-paid clicks. However it will be that kind of products that will be the most interesting to the user base of hollr.com. Everybody there wants to be one of the first to support a new interesting product, but when no money can be earned with that hollrr will need another revenue stream.
So my question to Hollrr: How are you going to make money?
More revenue model examples and inspiration:
Nick – thank you for the shout out. As a small company we love all the exposure we can get.
The team at Hollrr is on a mission… a mission to help people launch great products…. a mission to destroy the advertising that says I have to see banner ads for mediocre products that no-one cares about.
Social Media totally changes what effective advertising should be. Why should you believe a company that tells you their brand is good… when you can listen to the Twittersphere and find out exactly what users think of that brand? In this new world of promotion, shitty products have nowhere to hide… and great products will shine like they deserve to.
We believe that small companies don’t expect promotion to be free…. they are happy to pay as long as its a good return on investment. For example, many small companies effectively use Affiliate Marketing and targeted search ads. However… you do raise a good point: existing ‘banner’ advertising is too unfocused and ineffective to be profitable for most small businesses. This is where Hollrr comes in… we believe that positive word of mouth promotion, through Hollrr, will give small companies big bang for their advertising buck!
As we launch, our primary rewards structure will integrate with our partner companies’ existing affiliate programs. However, affiliate-type programs will only be suitable for a subset of companies. As we build critical mass, we’ll look to introduce more reward options that both encourage users to shout about their favorite product, and allow small companies to generate high ROI on their marketing dollars.
Thanks for giving us an opportunity to connect with your readers. We have a lot of work to do…. and we’d love to get any and all feedback your readers have. From the enthusiastic response we’ve received from both companies and fans, we know we’re on to something. But we’re also eager to hear more feedback so we can make it even better.
Please always feel free to email me direct if you’ve any comments or suggestions.
Thanks again,
-David
Chief Hollrr
hegs@hollrr.com
[...] How can Hollrr.com pay bloggers for spotting new products? Early-adopters spot new products, and actively spread the word about their ‘discovery’. Hollrr’s system rewards them for their exposure. [...]
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Hi Nick & Philippe,
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