The Long Tail Of Business Models

Chris Anderson of "Long Tail" fame has a blog post up where he quotes me (thanks Chris) and then submits a list of various web media business models and asks for other ideas. Here’s his list so far:

• CPM ads ("cost per thousand views"; banner ads online and regular ads in print, TV and radio)
• CPC ads ("cost per click"; think Google ads)
• CPT ads ("cost per transaction"; you pay only if the customer brought to you from a media sites becomes a paying customer. Here’s an example.)
• Lead generation (you pay for qualified names of potential customers)
• Subscription revenues
• Affiliate revenues (think: Amazon Associates)
• Rental of subscriber lists
• Sale of information (selling data about users–aggregate/statistical or individual–to third parties)
• Licensing of brand (people pay to use a media brand as implied endorsement)
• Licensing of content (syndication)
• Getting the users to create something of value for free and applying any of the above to monetize it. (Like Digg or our own Reddit

• Upgraded service/content (ed: aka "freemium")
• Alternate output (pdf; print/print-on-demand; customized Shared Book style; etc.)
• Custom services/feeds
• Live events
• "Souvenirs"/"Merchandise"
• Co-branded spinoff

To that list, I’d add:

• Cost Per Install (popular with top Facebook apps who can help others get installs)
• E-commerce (selling stuff directly on your website)
• Sponsorships (ads of some sort that are sold based on time, not on the number of impressions)
• Listings (paying a time based amount to list something like a job or real estate on your website)
• Paid Inclusion (a form of CPC advertising where an advertiser pays to be included in a search result)
• Streaming Audio Advertising (like radio advertising delivered in the audio stream after a certain amount of audio content has been delivered)
• Streaming Video Advertising (like streaming audio but in video)
• API Fees (charging third parties to access your API)

I am certain there are at least dozens more, but I am off to the gym. I’d like to see us all compile as exhaustive a list as possible. So please leave your additional business model comments on either Chris’ post or this post, or write your own post and tag it in delicious with the world "webbusinessmodel". Thanks.