Why Promoted Posts Are Not The Social Network Revenue Model We Were All...
We all know it. Social networking is yet to find a revenue model that is sustainable. Facebook seemed to have cracked the code when its advertising started churning billions of dollars in revenues but...
View ArticleReverse Network Effects: Is Twitter Losing Its Mojo?
We’re all familiar with the concept of network effects. We hear it used all the time to explain the success of companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. As these networks scale, the value of the...
View ArticleHow Quora, StackOverflow And Yelp Create Sustainable User Contribution...
Platforms that are dependent on user-generated content (UGC) constantly face a challenge to be sustainable. A key metric for such platforms is the ratio of producers to consumers. Very often,...
View ArticleThe Network Effect Isn’t Good Enough!
This essay originally appeared on TechCrunch. I had the pleasure of co-authoring it with Nir Eyal. Nir runs a great blog about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com....
View ArticleHow to get users to contribute on a creativity platform
Let’s loosely define creativity platforms as platforms that allow creators to express themselves, and possibly get an audience for their ‘creations’. YouTube, Dribbble, 500px, Instagram, Flickr… the...
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Reverse Network Effects: The Challenges of Scaling an Online Platform
Network effects are the most exciting aspect of Platform Thinking. Platform Thinking is an approach to business which looks at an online business as being composed of two elements: platform and value...
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How disruptive platforms get mainstream adoption
“What got you here won’t get you there.” Career advice that works equally well in the world of online platforms. The single factor that separates a successful platform from a failed one is the...
View ArticleHow to become a billion dollar startup: AirBnB, YouTube and Platform Thinking
Note: This essay was first featured on TheNextWeb Technology startups are disruptive because they are driven by a desire to solve an unsolved problem in a unique way and create new value. Most large...
View ArticleMarketplace Metrics: The three success factors
Note: This article was originally published on TheNextWeb Marketplaces are difficult businesses to run. Like all multi-sided platform businesses, they suffer from the classic chicken and egg problem:...
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How to disrupt Craigslist
Craigslist, that ugly set of electric-blue links that still stands around like an exhibit from the museum of early web design. Poor design and a general lack of features haven’t come in the way of the...
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Why #Hashtags are the future of monetizing social media
You can’t invite people to a party and try to sell them stuff. Pretty much every starry-eyed startup that went after eyeballs gets it by now. Over the last seven years the web has moved away from a...
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When Social Fails: How Sampling Costs Kill Social Curation
Social curation is a great way to scale any business relying on user-generated content. YouTube and Quora enable the community to create value through upvotes/downvotes and the ability to report abuse....
View ArticleTrolls, Vandalism and Report Abuse: A Framework for Online Community Management
Online platforms work on principles similar to offline communities. The onset of crime and vandalism in a community can lead to large-scale abandonment. The same applies to online communities and...
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How Google’s crawlers, Uber’s drivers and Instagram’s selfies power the...
This article is #4 in an ongoing series on the design of platform business models. What do Google’s crawlers, Uber’s drivers and Instagram’s selfie-clickers have in common? Or for that matter Elance’s...
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A SCALING FRAMEWORK FOR NETWORK EFFECT PLATFORMS
One of the most common misconceptions about running a platform business is that it’s all straight and easy once the initial chicken and egg problem of getting both producers and consumers is solved....
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Reverse Network Effects: The Challenges of Scaling an Online Platform
Network effects are the most exciting aspect of Platform Thinking. Platform Thinking is an approach to business which looks at an online business as being composed of two elements: platform and value...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How disruptive platforms get mainstream adoption
“What got you here won’t get you there.” Career advice that works equally well in the world of online platforms. The single factor that separates a successful platform from a failed one is the...
View ArticleHow to become a billion dollar startup: AirBnB, YouTube and Platform Thinking
Note: This essay was first featured on TheNextWeb Technology startups are disruptive because they are driven by a desire to solve an unsolved problem in a unique way and create new value. Most large...
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