Comments on: Free* (or, how to give away the store without giving away the store)

By: Monster.com chases its own scale « The Digitalists

Monster.com chases its own scale « The Digitalists — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:11:23 +0000

[...] one sense, job boards are similar to other types of advertising markets, but while a typical advertiser is looking to sell as much product as the audience is willing to [...]

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:09:30 +0000

Good points, Dave. For a perfect illustration of the obliviousness of those in the newspaper industry, check out this desperate plea for relevance from the New York Times' Eduardo Porter, who mindlessly conflates "newspapers" and "independent media".

By: Dave Payne

Dave Payne — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:42:43 +0000

My name is Dave Payne and I run SkyBlox. Thanks for the mention. While we have the typical startup problems, our model has been well received for the reasons you mentioned.

To reply to your larger argument from my vantage point, new media models (like SkyBlox) start from very different places. We are EarthLink’s former Wi-Fi group, so we began from the Wi-Fi angle. That allowed us to view local content as “free.” Or free until we built-up the necessary traffic to think otherwise. This is a luxury that the dot-com era startup didn’t have (or traditional media for that matter).

From where I sit, traditional media (like the alternative weeklies or city newspapers) are becoming irrelevant because each part of their business is being taken over by sites like mine. Classifieds are now Craigslist. Editorial content is now Outside.In. Coupon inserts or Savvy Shopper deals are now offerings like SkyBlox.

These days I receive more relevant, desirable local content from my Twitter feed than any website.

Here’s some recent observations about one local paper…

http://blog.skyblox.com/?p=366

Dave

By: jetwit.com - The JetWit Business Model?

jetwit.com - The JetWit Business Model? — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:39:01 +0000

[...] his post on The Digitalists titled Free* (or, how to give away the store without giving away the store), Greg comments on Wired editor Chris Anderson’s new book Free and a possible direction the [...]