Archive for January, 2011

If you are looking for a new business model for your project? You have a great idea for a site, but no idea how to monitize it?

You could of course be traditional and offer an ad-based freemium-model like spotify.com with a sidedish of premium service. That have been done many times, but it is more flexible than the even more traditional model where you just let your users pay.

Maybe you could offer a free service and use it to gather large amounts of data and sell them like Patientslikeme.com? Or simply take a commision (or a posting fee) for facilitating contact/services to/from other companies like flattr.com, airbnb.com or GroupOn.com?

There is also a model where you let your customers pay what they want (encouraged by an anchor price of what other users have paid) and even let the users decide how much of the money that should go to charity. An example of this model can be found at humblebundle.com.

Or if your main product is free, how about “in-app”-sales like Haypi Kingdom or my favorite example Farmville – and if you want the user to loose track of the “real-world cost” then make your own monitary system.

If you want your users to create something of value, then make a platform that lets them co-create and get a share in the profit like Quicky.com. Helping other creative people monitize their ideas – that’s a great business model! Almost a meta business model.

Source: These was all picked from the presentation below; “10 business models that rocked 2010”

Less is more. That was my big lesson in 2010. I used to have clutter, mess, piles and heaps of stuff – in my home and in my office. Now my things fit into a suitcase and a backpack. I can’t buy things that I am not willing to carry with me every day, so I never shop anymore except to replace other things. Material things has never meant less to me than they do now.

It reminds me of the saying; “If you own more than seven things, the things will own you”. The simplification I have done in my life really feels like freedom. I can honestly say that I don’t miss any of my stuff. Back home we had a “game room” with several XBoxes, a Wii and a Playstation as well as a home movie theatre; I loved it and spent a lot of time there, and I really thought I would miss it, but I don’t. What I miss from back home are the people; friends, colleagues and family, but actually I speak more to my close family now than I did, when I lived less than 100 kilometers away from them (thank you, Skype).

Money has never been a big thing for me and that is probably because I have just been lucky to be able to make a fine living for doing what I love. The IT-business is a generous place to be. Now I think even less about it and also spend much less. Living in Asia can be cheap even while enjoying some luxury. Cutting down on our spending also have the nice side effect that we don’t have to work as many hours on profitable projects and can devote more time for pet projects, sightseeing or just each other.

Some days I wake up and I can’t believe, how lucky I am, thinking that this can’t last. But I just can’t stay worried; the sun is shining and I just keep telling myself: Don’t worry – be happy.

We Danes are known for our happiness being listed as the happiest people in the world several times by OECD, the reason often cited (by Americans) is that we expect less from life. I don’t think that is the true answer; we expect a lot from life just not only material things. We value life experiences and quality over quantity, and right now I’m taking that to an extreme and loving every minute of it.

Less IS more.

Reading through the YOW! 2010 conference program I was reminded of the rallying cry “more cowbell”. The evening keynote on the first day, 50 in 50 by Guy Steele and Richard Gabriel, really brings back memories. I first saw this keynote a few years ago at JAOO Aarhus 2008 and I was in awe of the artful presentation of so many programming languages! It’s not every day you see Guy Steele rapping.

Fortunately it was taped and the video is here:

Click To Play

How many of the programming languages did you know?