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{ Category Archives } businessmodel

Google bank

Banks are of course very much the focus of the news these days. One of the interesting news items a journalist found out is that Google already has a banking license in the Netherlands. Bank are potentially one of the sectors that will change a lot because of business possibilities that a technology like SaaS will enable. Competition will come from completely new sectors because they are better at reaching the market or using the “intelligence of crowds”. While searching a little further I found this blog post from Jeff Jarvis where he is asking for examples of bank services that Google would be very good at. Examples are peer to peer lending, more transparency around transactions in stocks, open source platforms to increase functionality (E-invoices anyone?). In a way Google checkout and it’s competitor PayPal are already on the move. In my view banks really have to start thinking on how to really innovate their processes through which they create value for their customers.
2008 11 24 Martijn Kriens Tags: , Comments (1)

Adtention economy

I came acros this interesting article about the value of clicks on adds on the Internet. Since advertising is beginning to look (Seem) like the holy grail to keep the Internet free for use it is amazing how little data there is on how and why people click on adds and what the real effects are. The following result out of the study is interesting: What did we learn? A lot. We learned that most people do not click on ads, and those that do are by no means representative of Web users at large. Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks. Seems a lot of research is needed to really understand how the relation between audience, click rate and real economic effects will be clear.
2007 12 03 Martijn Kriens Tags: , Comments (0)

The Times are changing

Isn't it funny how more and more things are being paid for by advertising while at the same time we all get more and more irritated by advertising being everywhere. The New York Times have stopped their paid subscription service in favor of free access. This is a subscription service that made them 10 million dollar a year. They now feel that they can make more money on advertising. Somehow I sometimes get an uneasy feeling about all those things that are being paid by advertising money. Somehow I still think this business model has it's limits. Let's do a thought experiment: Imagine that more and more companies are making money by mixing ads with the service they deliver to us. OK, let's be really wild: imagine that all services are being paid for by advertising. Would that not be great: all services are free, all we have to do for it is accept some adds (and many we can block them?). Problem is: who is going to pay for all these ads. The companies that make their money by selling ads together with their services will of course not be advertising, at least they will ...
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2007 09 20 Martijn Kriens Tags: , Comments (0)

Citizen Journalism 2

They made it! The group of people from AssignmentZero I blogged about some time ago have their articles published on Wired. Though it is easy to see that it has been a mixed blessing in results it is also easy to see the enthusiasm people have in doing this. One of the conclusion they have reached is that a good balance or professionals and amateurs is crucial. The professionals know how to present news, the amateurs are everywhere where news may be found. Read more about it here. Also, we have an example of this trend in the Netherlands. They recently published an ad in the newspaper "DAG" for citizen journalist to cover news from the "Tour de France". I think that is an excellent combination of enthusiastic amateurs covering many locations with phone camera's in combination with a professional editorial team. All sides win: the amateur have a great time while watching the tour with a missions and the newspaper gets wider coverage of the news. Lot's of people love producing instead of just consuming.
2007 07 09 Martijn Kriens Social Software
paticipationTags: , , Comments (6)

Identity

When I have an appointment at an organisation that is very security conscious (e.g. Police, Thales, the home office and others) I normally have to show an official ID like driver license or passport. In normal life we all feel comfortable doing this when there is a reason for this security. And we see it as a normal task of the government to provide us with the means to identify ourselves in a way that creates a fair amount trust that we are who we say we are.In digital life there is a serious lack of trustworthy identification. At the moment I am developing a project that deals with organising prevention, care and cure bottom up. Not starting with the specialists but with the people in the local districts. Helping people organise this in their own district can help to strengthen the social fabric of our society. Through helping people to help each other and through a stronger say from the civilians living in these areas in what is important. For them and for the district. This is especially important in areas with problems like the Ella Vogelaar wijken in Rotterdam. For some services you definitely ...
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2007 07 05 Martijn Kriens Politics
governance
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Individual interests and Innovation

If you have invented something very interesting, you want to get a share of the action. I would. But fact is that our copyright laws and patents create a monopoly. And in general monopolies are bad for us. In this interesting article I read the case is made that Watt and the steam engine that he invented has been the greatest bottleneck for further innovation. Simply put, the steam engine and the industrial revolution only took of after the patent expired. Innovation builds upon the shoulders of previous innovators. In the discussion on Brittanica Andrew Keen is making the case that the movement of free information will lead us to a "counter-revolution": As Gorman so ably argues, we now have a whole generation of digital idealists who believe that information should be free, that it’s liberating, and that computers are emancipating our intellects, unbottling our creativity. If I look around the Internet I would say: free information is liberating and that I see a lot of creativity unlocked. If we look at the potential for social software you can see we are only beginning. But one of the key problems we have is the fact that copyright laws make innovative use of information ...
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2007 06 21 Martijn Kriens IPRTags: , Comments (1)

Innovators or Free riders

This is a comment on the articles by Gorman and Shirky on the Brittanica blog and Many2Many. Major issue to me on this discussion is the consequences of the change we are making from the traditional publishing of information, including the accompanying business model, to the electronic publishing with the "free business model". In this discussion a comparison is made with the Luddites, 19th century weavers and knitters who fought against the use of textile machines because it threatened their business. ===== But isn't there a big difference with he Luddites. The Luddites complained that new technology was making them unemployed, which true but happened in a fair market. Machine fabricated and hand woven competed and the first won. I think at this moment the case is different. Look at the way everybody is quoting the Luddites. Reading the articles it is my well educated guess that most people are retrieving what they know about the Luddites from ... Wikipedia (King Ludd ..). Interesting. But where do we think that the original knowledge of Luddites is coming from. Again my educated guess would be that sometime somewhere someone copied (rephrased) an encyclopedia. The new competition for the Luddites did ...
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2007 06 21 Martijn Kriens researchTags: Comments (0)