There has been a longstanding debate as to the different business models that might be out there about the Open Source business model (OSBM for the purposes of this piece). This post is inspired by the fact that Big In Japan has released the codebase to many of their popular web2.0 projects, and are essentially challenging the many conventions that are ever present in this generation of web apps.There has been one prevailing business model in open source over the last decade, and that has been a support/service model: you get the car for free, but when you have trouble filling it with gas, you have to pay by the minute for help. Now this is a fine model, it works very well for a number of companies, but its not the only one out there. Biggu has turned that model a bit, and used the open source model as a way of continuing the development of their non-revenue generating tools, which are really what you could call loss leaders. These small applications are used to get the buzz and traffic about them, and then in turn point people to their pro service via podserve/fancast. This is quite smart on a number of levels, the first being: product doesn’t generate much money, so let the fans keep building it. Secondly, it builds a community around your products and services. These people are your BEST sales tool.Once people start realizing there is alot of marketing potential in open source, there will be a growth in the number of projects out there. I’m definitely going to keep talking about this subject more as I think there is a lot of stuff to be talked about. Think of this post as an introductory lead in to more on Open Source.

So some of you may have noticed my latest startup is up and running, theWeblogWire.com.

So what’re you waiting for? go check it out!

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Google announced Trends today, which lets people perform a hybrid google ego battle so to speak between two or more topics over time.  Now this might not seem like much to you right now, but what it really means is that marketers can now precisely measure the popularity of certain topics in relation to others.Have you ever wondered if Bush was more popular than god? Well now you know that for a time, people were in fact more curious about him than the All Mighty.How does this affect you, the small business owner? Well now you can access mounds of data that was previously unavailable to you for free. This is the data that some SEO analysts or interactive marketing firms were able to get for you in the past, but required alot of data crunching and analysis.Interestingly, they are also referencing news events in the timelines (take this comparison of amazon to web2.0, techcrunch, and startups).

So today I attended 37signals’ “Getting Real Workshop” at the Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago. Quite the seminar I must say, the guys at 37s did quite a job of organizing the whole deal, everything was well thought out down to the food (which was VERY good, kudos to the catering company).

Unfortunately there was no preview of Sunrise their “CRM-ish” tool that they were rumored to be announcing/showing off today. They did manage to show off their new group communication tool “Campfire,” which was pretty neat for what its worth. Demos aside, the workshop was very useful in what they covered in respect to general business tips. Now I won’t go into specifics of what they covered (don’t want to step on anyone’s toes), but they had alot of good tips that many non-MBAs wouldn’t think of. Alot of stuff they covered strikes you as common sense AFTER you hear it, but its these things here and there that people don’t really think of. All in all it was a good workshop, more from a business of web apps perspective than from any programming aspect.

On a personal note, I am working on 4 different interfaces at the moment, for 3 different personal web apps, 1 for a client, not to mention a redesign of infinimedia.com, and a handful of other little projects here and there. So if I don’t post on this site much in the next week, then you know why. The reason for the rush is we’re trying to get some of these apps into a solid Beta, maybe even a limited 1.0 launch by mid-february, and hopefully going full speed by SXSW in march. So on that note, back to coding. I will write up a business article of my own loosely borrowing some of today’s themes later.

OR how craigslist’s popularity is killing it.

I’ve been a follower of craigslist for quite some time, and have to applaud them for the job they’ve done democratizing the classifieds marketplace (whether or not that was the intention of Mr. Newmark, I will never know, but I suspect it was just a nice by-product of it all). However, there is a major hole in the system, it relies TOO much on the community action to filter out the spam on the sections it doesn’t charge for. These problems are probably eliminated in areas where posting costs $ (San fran, ny, LA, etc.), but it doesn’t help the areas where it is still free.

These free areas are where Craigslist will want to grow its audience and eventually generate revenue from them. Yet this double edge sword also leads to a lot of spammers filling up the sections that would otherwise offer valuable resources to the casual reader. Now I am sure there is a cadre of die-hard craigslisters out there, but these people can only flag so much stuff, there is still a TON of stuff waiting to be cleaned up. So what is craigslist supposed to do about this? The easiest way would be to create a barrier of entry. A simple one page sign-up form before you post would be one way. Then on top of that continue with their posting-authentication system. Maybe even hire someone from each city to sift through all the new postings?

How is any of this revolutionary you ask? Well in all honesty it isn’t at all new, its just a matter of them taking the reigns before the problem gets way out of control.