Business Models of Conversation

Sunday, February 18, 2018 · 1 min read

Ideas around how to build business by packaging conversations.

Premise

With social media, we commercialized personal connection and conversation.

However, the users of the current digital social mediums are mostly monetized. Hence the internet cliche phrase “if you’re not paying for a product you are the product.”

While this may be true in aggregate, there are individuals and organizations that are leveraging the features of open networks to monetize conversation for themselves, using platforms like Apple, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to sell their conversations.

Examples

Podcasts: styled as conversations in the form of radio. Cater to niches and scale through online distribution. Monetize with ads.

Subscriptions: commentary and perspective. Monetize through subscriber fees.

Groups: access to a like-minded community. Niche. Online distribution though often these lead to meatspace events. Monetize through member fees.