'Net Features : web 2.0

Freemium Models and Partnerships

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:05:00 GMT

The debate regarding offering products and services as a freemium rages on.

The model of many Web 2.0 style sites, freemiums are by far the prominent choice (78%) for those looking to weather the economic downturn (compared to 27% for the subscription model) according to a survey conducted by Yola (formerly SynthaSite) at the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this month.

Yola found that nine out of ten respondents believe partnerships will be the primary driver for innovation in 2010. Website advertising, no longer the fastest route to profitability, has been eclipsed by strategic partnerships and premium services, according to the respondents. Not surprisingly, nearly all those surveyed are using social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to establish an online persona for themselves. One interesting finding in the survey was the belief that online auction sites have peaked, leaving the door open for new forms of e-commerce among websites in the future.

“Web 2.0 Expo attendees are some of the most well-connected, online savvy individuals in the world,” said Vinny Lingham, CEO of Yola. “Their viewpoints shape the way the average consumer will operate online in a few years. Their responses confirmed some of the tenents we have built Yola around: individuals are eager to build a personal presence; free is key; and strategic partnerships are a driving factor in the Web 2.0 world.”

Additional survey findings include:

90 percent of respondents believe partnerships will be a driving factor for Web 2.0 innovation over the next year.
46 percent of respondents saw strategic partnerships as the fastest route to profitability; 42 percent believe it's only subscription-based services, and 39 percent believed it was advertising.
Only 8 percent believed online auction sites will grow this year.
97 percent of respondents use Web 2.0 tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) to establish an online persona.

Conference Calling API

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:33:00 GMT

Telephone application company IfByPhone released an API that lets developers add "smart" conference-calling capabilities to the websites they build for businesses. Smart Conference Calling is the latest capability to join Ifbyphone’s suite of over 60 customizable, hosted Web 2.0 business telephony applications that help small businesses automate the sales and customer service processes.

The solutions sounds like it will be especially useful for small businesses, especially franchises, associations and other membership organizations that need to initiate conference calls spontaneously for quick consultations. “Our Smart Conference Calling is unique since Ifbyphone calls the designated participants, instead of waiting for them having to dial in,” added Shapiro. “And we give users a sophisticated set of web based conference-call controls. The conference call originator / moderator can add or drop participants, see which participants are present, mute and unmute individual participants and schedule conferences for any time in the future.“

API Watch: On-Demand Stock Quotes

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:10:00 GMT

Some news from the Web 2.0 Expo being held in New York today. Xignite, a provider of on-demand financial web services for applications, announced the availability of XigniteGlobalQuotes. The Web service delivers delayed stock quotes from global established and emerging markets such as the London Stock Exchange, Mumbai Stock Exchange and a whole host of others. If that's doesn't get you thinking about all the ways you can use the Xignite API then nothing will.

Data from emerging markets has traditionally been hard to come by and even more difficult to integrate into business processes. XigniteGlobalQuotes lets businesses integrate delayed stock data into their applications and websites in minutes with just a few lines of code and without deploying any infrastructure.

“For the last four years, Xignite has been at the forefront in delivering web services for the financial industry. We identified a strong, unmet demand for global financial data and are meeting it with XigniteGlobalQuotes,” said Stephane Dubois, founder and CEO of Xignite. “With cloud computing gaining traction in the enterprise and within financial institutions, IT departments are recognizing that cloud-based web services offer a flexible and cost-effective alternative for sourcing market data to power mission-critical applications.”