Freemium Content

technorati tags: business, model, content, premium, monetize

Sunset on Skillman
Originally uploaded by adamelend.

Fred Wilson at A VC has a good post exploring the ramifications of what he calls the "freemium" business model for content.

Freemium is where you receive some functionality for free, and pay for premium service (how flickr is set up, for example). His conclusion is basically that freemium works great for service, but is not effective for content:

If your business is entirely about content, then you must offer your content for free and support it with advertising. You can offer the same content in more convenient forms as a paid service (email and RSS alerts, packaged without ads, archives, etc) but I believe you must make the content free or you will not maximize the audience and the value of the online medium.

I bolded what I think is his most interesting point - that the premium for content is in the delivery. How you receive it, search it, mash it up, pass it along - all or some of this functionality can be premium.