I've been thinking a lot about revenue models for these Web 2.0 companies that nobody can seem to monetize. While we have a monetization strategy for Vyoo, others do not and will not anytime soon. One possible solution is completely changing the model.
Problems: the traditional advertising model does not exist on Facebook or Twitter. And it won't. I reason this because people don't go to Facebook to make purchases and Twitter is quick, continuous consumption of streamed data. Sure you could throw in ads here and there but it would ruin how Twitter works.
So what about public funding? I'm saying this as an absolute opponent of more government. I hate the healthcare plan. I hate taking over the automobile industries. I hate bailing out Wall Street. Mainly because these industries made mistakes. They should be able to survive and thrive if they were run properly and had smart strategies. But there's some rationality to public funding for certain things that cannot operate without it. Like the funding of some baseball parks for example. Because ultimately they provide a value for the community as a whole which wouldn't be entirely possible without the funding. So how about public funding for sites that provide real value to our people and the government. Twitter has been instrumental in getting the word out in Iran. It's been so important the the State Department asked Twitter not to go down for its scheduled maintenance during the crisis.
Yankee Stadium cost the tax payers of New York nearly $2 billion (here). And having taxpayer money go to Twitter or Facebook doesn't hurt anyone - like some of these bailouts do.
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