Long Time Lurker and just back from o/s so sorry if this is a bit delayed. <div><br></div><div>Just to add my 2 cents worth (of which the government will get around 1 and a bit cents), some key points that may be of interest in monetizing social media. I specialise in social network monetization strategies. Why? Because money - whether a store of worth (past sale), menu of value (future sale) or medium of exchange (current sale)- simply shows where large groups of people place value. And we need to show value, it's a function of community. Follow the value systems, you'll follow the money. </div>
<div><br></div><div>MySpace was making around $2.17 per member per year from advertising in 2006. This is not high when compared to Habbo and Cyworld that don't have advertising any advertising. They make their money from the other strategies such as virtual goods and sponsored areas (which is advertising masquerading as donation microcommunity sites) and freemium services. Habbo averages around $20 per year per member, Cyworld $17 CNN Money link <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/27/technology/cyworld0727.biz2/index.htm">http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/27/technology/cyworld0727.biz2/index.htm</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>However MySpace has recently branched out into event management (launch of albums, mothers day events for luxury brand) and the like, so they are increasing the number of revenue streams.</div><div><br>
</div><div>I think it's also worth noting that Wikipedia in 2007/2008 had $3.5 million worth of expenses, and raised $7 million through donations. This does not included other donated services such as pro bono legal work, or server/bandwidth. Warning: pdf - <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/2a/WMF_20072008_Annual_report.pdf">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/2a/WMF_20072008_Annual_report.pdf</a> page 6 or 8. So running large communities without advertising or heavy revenues is possible. In a distributed social economy the mogul looks a bit lost. Poor Rupert. (he's Australian too so I can call him by his first name).</div>
<div><br></div><div>I strongly believe in the peer to peer economy. Social banking such as the LendingClub (ask Facebook members for a loan), peer to peer telecommunications (donate sliver of your at home wifi to the mesh, get income from telco), widgetized API sales and others. I am particularly impressed with some of the new affiliate programs for monetizing Facebook widgets and iPhone apps which do a revenue share back to the community member as well as p2p merchandizing. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Incidentally, a number of iPhone and Facebook apps are making upwards of $3 million per week - Mafia Wars is one. The 3 main affiliate programs often dangle winning micro-app revenue figures to sign up newcomers, so I keep an eye on them. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I list 22 or so revenue streams on this chart <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/silkcharm/2893602428/in/set-72157606247590916/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/silkcharm/2893602428/in/set-72157606247590916/</a> (top left is p2p economies, top right API based sales) and background blog post <a href="http://laurelpapworth.com/social-media-monetization-and-revenue/">http://laurelpapworth.com/social-media-monetization-and-revenue/</a> is here. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I teach one day workshops on the social economy and will be placing the updated Courseware for download on Scribd, Lulu and my blog in the next week or so, under creative commons. If you are interested please email me (<a href="mailto:laurel@laurelpapworth.com">laurel@laurelpapworth.com</a>) directly for a copy. And no, I'm not selling the e-copy, that's not how I choose to monetize my content. :) </div>
<div>Cheers, Laurel @SilkCharm</div><div><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Sean Cubitt <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:scubitt@unimelb.edu.au">scubitt@unimelb.edu.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div>
<font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt">What’s so fascinating is just how small the workforce behind a global player can be; pointing toards the economic scale of content production by users<br>
<br>
Extracted from a longer piece at<br>
<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/myspace-cuts-twothirds-of-global-workforce-20090624-cvw1.html" target="_blank">http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/myspace-cuts-twothirds-of-global-workforce-20090624-cvw1.html</a><br>
<br>
</span></font><font color="#666666"><font size="1"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:9pt">June 24, 2009 - 10:15AM<br>
</span></font></font></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:11.5pt">Social networking site MySpace plans to cut 300 jobs, or two-thirds of its overseas work force, in an effort to rein in costs and focus on countries where it has many users and better business opportunities.<br>
<br>
The move comes a week after the News Corp. unit said it would cut 420 jobs in the U.S., or nearly 30 per cent of its domestic work force. Combined, the cuts will reduce MySpace's employee base by nearly 40 per cent to about 1,150.<br>
<br>
"Our goal to tap into as many international markets as possible drove us to create too many offices around the globe, and with them came inefficiencies," chief executive Owen Van Natta, a former executive at rival Facebook, said in a memo sent to employees.<br>
<br>
Regards<br><font color="#888888">
<br>
sean</font></span></font>
</div>
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