Now that we can no longer blame the bubble burst for failing dot-com business plans, and Microsoft has bagged its .Net subscription plan it’s time to look at what makes a commercial web-based application work.
Free Access
Make a bare-bones free account. To generate meaningful feedback and build a community, you need to get registered users. Example: Blogger
Bag Quotas
Disk space is a commodity - not your competitive advantage. Be generous (a la Gmail) with your space. Remember: hard drive space is cheap. Example: Gmail, Flickr
Leverage Content
You’re not in the disk space business, so what business are you in? If you’re a photo site, sell prints. If you’re Gmail, generate ads from email content. Example: Webshots, Google
This last point is where the real money is to be made. You’re supplying the space, be smart about the potential applications of the content.
This is where Six Apart needs to set themselves apart. They have the legitimacy to leverage partnerships that would add value to the tomes of thought TypePad users knock out daily. The Movable Type code isn’t a competitive advantage. In the long run they need to figure out new revenue streams from the content they host.
Example: I can’t for the life of me figure out why no one has combined a CafePress-style one-off book printing service for their bloggers. Just seems like a no-brainer.
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