Attending a recent residency in Colorado Springs my Cohort and I had a brief discussion on a company that allowed you to develop an IPhone app for free. I did a quick search on Google for, "develop iPhone app for free" which resulted in over 98,000 hits. Now obviously these 98,000 are not sites that will allow you to develop iPhone apps for free but it does give an example of how relevant the discussion is.
Two examples of how technical and economic transformations are allowing new emerging media practices possible is the fact that you don't need $100 million dollars in Venture Capital to launch these new emerging media platforms. Whether developing a slick iPhone app or launching a new social networking site, you don't need a lot of money or a degree in C programming to develop these emerging media technologies. Open source, developer’s communities and the idea of FREE (read: Chris Anderson's book Free - How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit By Giving Something For Nothing), make it all possible.
Remember 11 years ago when we had the so-called "internet bubble,” a situation where every internet start-up imaginable was getting VC funding to develop the latest and greatest social website (I remember seeing a commercial during the Super Bowl during this time about a social networking site for dogs – I don’t think it made it). Back then you needed millions to develop these sites because the industry wasn’t as open as it is today and you needed a small army of outsourced developers over seas to develop it. With Open Source and Free economic business models you see today, one can develop emerging media with little to no cost. It is up to the users on how successful it is.
Two examples of how technical and economic transformations are allowing new emerging media practices possible is the fact that you don't need $100 million dollars in Venture Capital to launch these new emerging media platforms. Whether developing a slick iPhone app or launching a new social networking site, you don't need a lot of money or a degree in C programming to develop these emerging media technologies. Open source, developer’s communities and the idea of FREE (read: Chris Anderson's book Free - How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit By Giving Something For Nothing), make it all possible.
Remember 11 years ago when we had the so-called "internet bubble,” a situation where every internet start-up imaginable was getting VC funding to develop the latest and greatest social website (I remember seeing a commercial during the Super Bowl during this time about a social networking site for dogs – I don’t think it made it). Back then you needed millions to develop these sites because the industry wasn’t as open as it is today and you needed a small army of outsourced developers over seas to develop it. With Open Source and Free economic business models you see today, one can develop emerging media with little to no cost. It is up to the users on how successful it is.
My iPhone example is not the only one. Today you can develop a blog site using WordPress, or you can create a social website / social networking site using Joomla or Drupal. All of these are examples of Open Source development communities where you can download the platform for free and use their developer’s community for any expertise you need to develop. With as little as $100 dollars for a hosting fee and leveraging free website templates you can develop a very attractive website for less than a few hundred dollars and if it doesn’t take off you don’t have to explain why your internet start-up is not profitable to a bunch of Stanford thirty-something’s in Palo Alto.
Open Source platforms and the idea of “Free” business models are two very interesting technical and economic transformations that have taken shape of the past several years to drive forward emerging media.
Evan Escobedo
So true Evan. I am fascinated with how the "free" model is taking off. Chris Anderson's book on this economic strategy is available for free online. But another interesting wiki that applies to this topic is from wired: "Most web apps will be monetized with some kind of media model. Don't think banner ads when I say that. Think of all the various ways that an audience that is paying attention to your service can be paid for by companies and people who want some of that attention." This wiki details how to make money around free content. http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_Money_Around_Free_Content
ReplyDeleteThis is a good start and happy to see that you are posting about this opportunity.
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