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. | Business Model | Description | Examples | |
. | Online Learning Marketplaces | Virtual marketplaces connect teachers and learners outside of traditional universities and schools. Professional independent teachers can give classes online, in a variety of formats and modalities, or sell teaching materials. Students select and buy the learning they seek directly from independent educators. | WiZiQ | Moontoast |
. | Subscription | Fixed-price or variable subscriptions to access data or content are available to the end-user. Fees dictate usage limitations. | Pandora | Last.fm |
. | Freemium | The freemium model works by offering basic services or content for free, while charging users a fee to access advanced or special features. | Flickr | Skype |
. | Fund-raising | Fund-raising is the process of soliciting and actively gathering money by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. | FundRaising | Giftsprings |
. | Donation | Donations are based on the spontaneous and generous independent contribution of users who pay for the services and benefits they receive according to their preferences. The amount of a donation may be fixed or left to the discretion of the user. | OpenOffice | Mozilla Foundation |
. | Platform Marketplaces | Platform marketplaces are online virtual platforms that define entertainment, education or work related ecosystems, in which developers and content distributors can participate by adopting and manufacturing / packaging their products to a set of specific technical and quality standards. | Apple App Store | Facebook Developers |
. | Re-Use / Re-Sell | Re-sell or re-use data or content (usually user-generated) to create related products which offer an additional value or cover unexplored market niches. | deviantART Shop | Clip Syndicate |
. | Merchandising | A brand or image from one product or service is used to sell and / or promote another good, not necessarily related. | CafePress | Zazzle |
. | Resale of Physical Goods | Often referred to as drop-shipping, this online business model allows the retailer not to keep goods in stock, but to simply transfer customer orders and shipment details to the manufacturer or wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. Online publishers mark-up the wholesale price and get paid the difference without having to worry about inventory, payments and shipping. | Amazon Associates | Doba |
. | Virtual Goods | Services which cannot be sold in the real-world but only exist on a virtual, intangible level like virtual worlds. Profits are based on virtual transactions operated with virtual currencies (like "linden dollars" for Second Life) which can later can be converted in real currencies. | Second Life | Kinset |
. | Information Products | Information Products include e-books, audio books, lessons, courses, guides and content collections on specific topics which can be directly sold online as downloadable products. | Lulu | CreateSpace |
. | Software as a Service | Online software or web-based service. The service is commercialized by charging end-users for its usage. | GoToMeeting | WebEx |
. | Link Selling | The sale of anchor-text based links from high ranking web sites to other sites with the specific purpose of influencing search engine results by boosting the apparent link popularity of a site for specific keywords. N.B.: Link selling is strongly discouraged and often penalized by Google. | LinkAdage | Text Link Ads |
. | Referral Leads | Online recommendation systems where advertisers pay for receiving qualified leads. | Sprint | USA 2 Referral |
. | Events | Online events such as webinars, workshops or conference sessions that are sold specifically for web access. Option include real-time or after-the-show options, and the possibility to offer video, uadio and text transcriptions of the content presented. | Eventbrite | TicketLeap |
. | Information Brokering | A company or web service acts as an information broker between those providing the info and those seeking it. The business model is generally based on charging those wanting to promote specific information, while leaving access free to those seeking it. In other cases users are charged a fixed-price or percentage per transaction. | JobCoin | Craigslist |
. | Product Placement | Product placement is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, storyline of TV shows, or news programs. Now product placement has extended its reach to the web. | Brandfame | PlaceMyProduct |
. | Paid Content | Ambiguous and often criticized promotional strategy in which editors and publishers are paid to write reviews or articles on specific products. | PayPerPost | SponsoredReviews |
. | Content Licensing and Redistribution | Content licensing services which offer web publishers to be economically rewarded when their content is published or redistributed by others. | Mochila | BlogBurst |