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Recently Scott Adam described an upcoming new way of doing business. He calls it ‘Broadcast shopping’. The main idea is that potential clients expose their intention to buy on an online platform. Clients can do this by describing their specific need or problem. On the other hand we would find companies that could provide a solution in the form of a product or service tailored to the specific needs of this person. They can send these customers their proposal, but so can other companies. Thereby this ‘request for proposal’ platform creates a reversed auction where companies are bidding against each other. In the end this should result in a better deal for the customer, like a lower price. Looking at the revenue model of such an internet platform, it could make sense to ask for a small access fee or to take a small commission on the actual transaction.
Although Scott claimed this is currently a non-existing business model, we see already the first experiments in the market. First of all these concepts will start in industries where it is worth the effort to start bidding. The margin on a bottle of milk will probably be too low. But within the field of real estate or banking the margins are much higher. Since 2008 the Dutch start-up Moviq.nl is giving homeowners the possibility to put their house up for sale, hypothetically of course. Thereby people can ‘flirt’ and test the market to see what their houses could be worth. Another Dutch initiative, that was only online for a few months this summer, was Spaarbod.nl. On this platform banks had the chance to bid against each other with the best interest rates to persuade individual savers. Although this second example went offline, this doesn’t mean that ‘broadcast shopping’ has no future. Scott is correct when stating that many more of these business models will follow. It will only be a matter of time.

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The new German start-up Niiu will soon launch their interpretation of a modern newspaper. Niiu readers have the possibility to select the content section of their choice. They prefer for instance the front page of The New York Times, the politics section of Tagesspiegel combined with the economic section of Handelsblatt business and select no sports at all. By using print-on-demand technology Niiu will create a unique paper version and deliver that to your doorstep. Thereby they try hold on to the romantic feeling of paper, an experience that remains important for many readers. Users pay via a flexible credit system which results in a prices between € 1,20 and € 1,80 per newspaper. Next to this revenue stream, advertisers will pay a higher price per ad due to the fact that they can be better targeted towards the reader’s interests. A part of the income will be redirected to the different news content providers that partner with Niiu. The traditional news sector is focused at value creation for the publishers: a one-size-fits-all newspaper at a fixed price that can be easily printed and distributed. In contrast the internet news business is aimed towards the user. Readers aren’t bounded to long-term subscription models with one content-provider but often hop from one news source to the other. Tools like RSS-readers help people to aggregate the content from the brands they like. Raising Pay-walls and blocking access to search engines doesn’t seem to be the right answer for classic news providers. We will have to see if Niiu manages to find a new niche within the news sector. But this unique businesses model that combines customized news with the classic paper experience looks already very promising.

Internet & media, Non-profit & public

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Many online content providers are struggling with their online business model. Nothing new of course. The same goes up for the scientific publishers. In contrast with the news industry where an off-line publication (newspaper) has a rather low price tag, scientific publications are valued at a much higher price. Therefore many of these publications are today locked behind webshops and not accessible to the public. Often the abstract doesn’t give enough information to convince people to buy the full article. DeepDyve tries to offer a solution for that. The scientific search engine now offers the possibility to rent full articles for 24 hours for only $ 0.99. The articles will be accessible online in a not distributable and printable format, at least that is what they are claiming. A part of the revenue will be shared to the scientific publishers.

The business model itself is not that unique. This is again a layered freemium model. Part of the content is accessible for free (abstract/summary) and people can pay to have access to more information. When articles are very long and on top of that complex to read, the 24 hour time frame will probably be not enough for most users. Renting more days or buying the article will often be a better choice. The difference with other micro-payment services is that the small $0.99 teasers are not the only revenue stream for the company. This is only a step-up to convince people to buy full articles. In contrast with news, scientific articles remain valuable over time what makes it more interesting to buy the articles instead of ‘renting’ them.

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The Emoji Dick project is again a good example of how communities can work together to achieve big tasks. In order to translate a copy of Moby Dick, founder Fred Benenson is looking for a crowd to assist him. He may need all the help since he will be translating English into Emoji, a Japanese emoticon language. His working crowd consists out of so called Amazon Mechanical Turks who deliver micro-services in exchange for micro-payments. Some will focus on making multiple translated suggestions of sentences while others will choose the best versions out of them. Other people (the backers) give donations to support the project. In return they will receive one of the exclusive versions of the book, depending on the amount of money they donated. Hopefully this generates enough money to start the project so ambitious Fred can enjoy a small profit as well.

Technology makes it possible that more people than ever are offering basic services that can be delivered worldwide. So instead of contacting a professional company, one may prefer to tap into a crowd of such micro-workers. To lower the risk the Emoji Dick project will only start when enough capital has been raised. Also Quirky, another social start-up we discussed earlier, makes use of these upfront payments. An interesting strategy! More and more start-ups are using such a business model, as a result (software) services that give support to such concepts will become more important in the future. So can we conclude by saying that A bright idea + the right Technology = a Risk-free innovation. Or are these business models to good to be true? What important risks do remain?

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Quirky, the social product development community, has a very intriguing multi-level business model that shows other web 2.0 projects that money making from day one is possible. Product developers all over the world can submit their ideas to the Quirky platform. Since the posting of these ideas will cost a designer 99 dollar, a first qualitative filtering will be made upfront. The Quirky team itself makes the final selection of which product idea will be produced and sold on the website but they make use the inputs of their online community to support their decision. These users give design advice on the product idea, the brand name, packaging and so on and will receive a small percentage of the 30% profit generated by that specific product idea. Of course also the actual designer of the product will get a share of this profit once the product has made actual sales. To lower the risk, Quirky will only start to produce and sell a product in their webshop once 500 people made a pre-sale of it. If the product idea never reaches this level, the designer will at least receive the marketing data gained of the platform. 99 dollar for these brief insights is still a fair price. Next to the submission fees of all the designers Quirky will gain of course a lot of money out of their webshop , once it will be running at full force. Quirky floats on top of several trends and manages to offer value for all the stakeholders involved. Design influencers win, product designers win and so does Quirky. Where other crowdsourcing plaftorms struggle to find a good balance between trading social currency (influence, exposure, reputation,…) next the ‘normal’ currency (dollars), it seems Quirky got it right. Selling user generated content is not new but this unique approach seems to have enough potential to grow large. Although this sounds promising, Quirky should be aware not to burn their money too fast since they are giving away a few dollars to those who talk about them(*) and to those who fill in a small survey. They do need of course a large community to gain momentum but the investment in new members by offering them 20 dollar (**) is maybe not that sustainable.

(*) Since we’re testing out the service as well, the quirky link in this article has a ‘referral’-identifier attached to it.
(**) You first need to submit a 1 minute survey

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A trip to Las Vegas  for a painting! New York artists Christine Santora and Justin Gignac are painting portraits of all the things they wish to get on WantsForSale.com. Wants For Sale is not new yet interesting to look into further. It is a nice variation on the Intention Economy in which the buyer’s intent shapes the production and delivery of a product or service, as in “I would like to have this” (similar to Igglo, Zillow, Eventful; yet offering a painting instead of money now). Each painting represents things like a new bikini, a month’s rent, gambling money, a customized Adidas shoe, and special experiences on a trip to Las Vegas. People buy the paintings by paying the value of the painted item or by delivering the item or experience itself.

Wants For Sale also follows along the lines of The Million Dollar Homepage and One thousand paintings – selling paintings of all numbers from 1 to 1000. Once featured on BBC, WIRED, boingboing and others, they create enough buzz for companies and individuals to be interested in the exposure and reputation – like iRobot for example. Wants For Sale brings an interesting concept which almost begs to be developed in a broker platform where everyone can post a painting, a song, a performance… for something they want to get! I am sure companies/brands would be interested in their fan’s productions.