Jon Lund, the head of the Danish Internet Advertising Bureau, and I had dinner in Norway last week and he told me the chilling story of the crazy free newspaper war in Denmark that almost killed everyone involved. I thought it was an important cautionary tale of Free gone wrong, and I encouraged him to [...]

From Box UK, a survey of business models used by the top Web apps, most of them variations of ad-supported Free and Freemium. In the chart below, the largest segment (ITA) is ad-supported, the second largest (ISV) is Freemium. After that is referral (ITR) and then the sale of virtual goods (IPV), such as the [...]

To the Editor, As a former Economist technology writer, I understand the attractions of “simplify, then exaggerate”. But in the case of your article on freeconomics (“The end of free lunch—again”, March 19th), you have done a bit too much of both. First, where is your evidence that online advertising is a failing model?  To [...]

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has just released a seven-minute movie called “I Am the Long Tail”. Here’s an excerpt of their description: Analysts estimate there are as many as 1.2 million Web sites that support themselves by selling advertising, through their own sales forces or ad networks. Most of them constitute the vaunted "long [...]

At the Sourceforge breakfast this morning we got some questions on what the organizational differences are between open source and social media. Here’s my answer: One of the paradoxes of early 20th Century management was the observation that companies are best run as dictatorships, while countries are best run as democracies. Why was this? Management [...]