Funding Models

I have no business background. I am a college professor. Still, I believe in funding models and I distrust situations in which I cannot figure out what the funding model is. Often, the funding model is there but not apparent. Some web companies offer content or a service in hopes you will click on ad links that generate some money for the owner of the content or provider of the service. Providers must weigh the cost of creating the content/services against the ad revenue they generate. Some companies offer free services just so web users will spend more time with other revenue generating web services. Maybe the only benefit is reputation that generates a payoff in another area – call this the college athletics model. The model also works quite well for Google. I see today that the founders are buying a fighter jet. In my way of interpreting the world, the reputation model explains the efforts of some who create web content/services and then make a living speaking about their experiences. The web resources are basically advertising. 

The music distribution “industry” is fertile ground for exploring competing funding models. There is file sharing, but I don’t count illegal ways of making money as funding. iTunes is clearly the leader – if I remember correctly Mr. Jobs claims the iTunes store now sells more music than any other outlet. Apple has now forged ahead of Walmart.

For a couple of years, I have been following (and paying a small monthly fee) to use LastFM. This company is more of a social site focused on music. If you are into the social thing, you can interact with others and learn about music in the process. This following/friending thing gets a little weird when you are sometimes 3 times the age of a potential friend. Perhaps classical rock, blues, and jazz works something like classical classical – good music is simply good music. Anyway, you can “discover” music that may interest you by noting the gaps in the overlap with others who have similar tastes. It works much like exploring the social bookmarking sites of others with similar interests and finding new sites you have yet to explore. You pay a little for this service and you contribute by simply using the site and sharing your own preferences. You do end up purchasing music, but not from last.fm. 

I mostly pay the last.fm fee because last.fm keeps track of the music I listen to online and from my ipods. I am interested in these data (nearly 60,000 plays now) and in the “online radio” station I can access based on my preferences. They can’t play specifically what I request, but the “mix” is so heavily saturated with my favorites that it does not really matter. Not sure how this is legal. I assume there is an ASCAP fee. I guess my $4 a month must cover the cost. Beats me.

My new experiment is LaLa. You can pay to download MP3s (without DRM) for .89. You can also pay .10 per song to create an online library you can continually access from any computer. In addition, you can upload the music you own (the site went through the 4000+ songs I have in my two computers with iTunes accounts) and play this music online just like the .10 songs you purchase. I sit at a computer the great majority of my waking hours so this seems like a steal. I will likely invest $10 a month in this site, but I could easily play 20-30 hours of exactly the music I feel like listening to from this site each week. I understand they are generating some money, but I am not certain they will make much money on me. The bandwidth costs must be immense. The cost for perpetual online access to the music I purchase is low, but there seems some possibility this company may not make it and then all that dime music is gone. We will see. Go slow. 

What about Pandora and PandoraFM? Free music as in FM radio. There are some ads on the sites. The Music Genome project which selects the playlist based on preferred artists and then songs you like and dislike first interested me (for those interested in the latest from Apple – this is very similar to Genius). I am not sure how these sites make it. They offer a great service to those who purchase music and I feel certain they encourage the sale of music, but they pay to stream nonetheless and face serious challenges.

I read a blog post today from Rheingold’s SmartMobs blog describing the FlatWorld Knowledge project. I have commented on this venture previously because the idea is to offer online textbooks for the college market at no cost (you might pay for ancillaries). The blog post indicates the company “announced the completion of a $700,000 round of funding“. Talk about an angel investor. 

The Flat World Knowledge Business Model 

Flat World Knowledge publishes professionally-produced, peer-reviewed college  textbooks from leading educational experts.  The company offers the textbooks as free web-hosted textbooks to students, and earns its revenue by providing students the option to purchase print-on-demand textbooks, audio textbooks, and digital study aids.

I would love to meet the folks who sold this model. I have been in the higher education setting for 30+ years and my experience has been that it works in the opposite way. You can give away ancillaries to instructors and students for using your book. I would be very skeptical that you can get enough students (and instructors) to fund the costs of free books by purchasing supplements. There is plenty of supplemental material already available at no cost (e.g., Merlot, search for instructor generated content in about any area of interest using Google). The effort and expertise to generate 300-400 pages of content requires an entirely different level of commitment. Perhaps states should commit funds to a grant program to support authors. Perhaps professional societies could generate resources (wait they are selling their products and clearly do not see themselves offering educational resources at no cost). I am certain that many universities are interested in this project (at least according to the press release). I wonder if these universities would be interested enough to fund summer writing projects or do they believe in the “free” business model too.

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If Oprah says it is OK, then ….

It appears that Oprah has become fascinated with reading books on a Kindle. The financial folks are projecting a bump in Kindle sales.You certainly will get no negative reaction from me. I wonder if Kindle reading is subject to the same hurdles that have prompted the recent discussion of the downside of reading from a screen (a recent discussion on WWWEDU focused on Nielson’s description of typical online scanning patterns and the concerns of some that this was encouraging a shallow style of interaction with text). I am guessing the content available for the Kindle offers little to those who want to skim. I don’t think I will invest in another gadget, but I hope a more general purpose “tablet” will eventually become available. I keep hoping Apple will offer a larger version of the “Touch” which I see as about half-way there.

Now, if we could direct Oprah toward other financial targets. How about hybrid cars?

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Digital Natives

In general, I think that the distinction between those who grow up with technology and those who have discovered technology after first learning to relate to their world is other ways is not that important. For me, there is a great difference between skill and perspective. I accept the reality that younger folks have a different perspective than I – some specific uses of technology are all they have known. Sometimes those with a different perspective can take advantage of the awareness of change to understand things on a deeper level and to develop greater skill. The acceptance of “this is the way the world is” is far from equivalent to understanding why the world is this way.

My oldest granddaughter, a digital native, contacted me via interactive video this morning to let me know she had made a jack-o-lantern. In my head, the carving of a pumpkin seemed pretty risky for such a young child, but it turns out she has pasted pieces of colored paper on a plastic milk jug.

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Hard times and open source

Andrew Keen (Cult of the Amateur) predicts that the downturn in the economy will deal a blow to open source software and information. This position is similar to my concern expressed several days ago that the economy may lead to the termination of free online services that are attractive to educators. 

Mass unemployment and a deep economic recession comprise the most effective antidote to the utopian ideals of open-source radicals. (Keen)

As I have considered the present situation, I have generated several concerns not presented by Keen. Free resources will be less likely because:

  • companies may withdraw a commitment to “exploratory time” for employees – e.g., Google allows employees time (20% I think) to work on personally defined initiatives instead of requiring them to spend 100% of paid time on assigned projects. BTW – universities often offer a similar opportunity (e.g., 20% time for secondary activities that pay – clinical psychologists seeing clients). The original motive as I understand it was to offer creative people an opportunity to be creative within the company as a way to keep them from going off to form their own companies. The threat of individuals leaving is greatly reduced in times of constriction.
  • companies may withdraw web services and open source projects that do not directly generate revenue and only promote the company (e.g., Google services that do not display ads)
  • individuals stressed by competition will be reluctant to contribute their time for the “good of the group”.

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Now, back to the environment

The interdependence of energy, global warming, the economy, and the flat world continue to fascinate me. Despite the intended focus of this blog, other issues sometimes simply require our attention.

PBS aired a Frontline special this evening focused on this identical set of interrelated topics. The entire program is available online with related in-depth material. What a tremendous resource.

Segment 8 contains an interview with T. Boone Pickens and his take on wind power. Check out the reference to North Dakota in this segment.

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Flashcards on Flash Cards

Ok – first, the title will end up being an overgeneralization, but I could not resist. I thought perhaps I would get some points for “cute”.

I recently read a post from MacWorld on flashcard generators for the iPod touch. While I am assuming that this is mostly an option for individuals at present, I do experiment with apps and I was curious about what was available. What I mean is that it likely uncommon that a high proportion of students in any given class would have an iPod touch or phone, but these devices are frequently purchased by individual students who are probably looking to take full advantage of their investment.

I decided to purchase iFlipr because the MacWorld article seemed to give it the highest recommendation and the cost was $3 (a 10 card version was available for free, but I decided I was getting something out of the program even if I only post something here and it was appropriate to pay). BTW – I am not going to offer a complete description of the process of generating your own flashcards here because a nice video can be found at the iFlipr site.

Flashcards go way back. I mean flashcards were around when I was in grade school. When I was in grade school and WAY BACK are equivalent. For the flash card , the standard flashcard has a question on one side and the answer on other. You attempt to answer the question and then flip the card over to see if you were correct.  Elementary students might use them to drill on math facts. I see many college students who still prepare flashcards for courses requiring a great deal of memorization. 

The flashcards tools for the “touch” and for some cell phones presents the front side of a card. iFlipr requires “self scoring”, but some other systems might make use of a multiple choice format. The idea is that you “think” of the answer and then flip the card to see if you are correct. You then mark the card as correct or incorrect. Different systems then offer different options. Perhaps, the cards simply continue to be presented at random until you quit. iFlipr offers a presentation option that displays “unknown” cards more frequently.

I found the creation of a set of cards a very easy process. I happened to have some images of macroinvertebrates Cindy had collected on a recent field trip and my exploration stack presented the picture of a critter on the front and the name on the back.

If I was a student and I owned a touch and I frequently took classes that required lots of memorization (e.g., languages, biology, chemistry), I would find it reasonable to invest $3 in this type of software.

I suppose we could get into a long discussion regarding the value of memorization. I will save you the trouble. There is too much memorization in schools, but sometimes it is essential to know some thing rather than look them up.

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