cdixon - Latest Comments in The new economy

Re: The new economy

Mark Essel — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:06:09 -0000

There's certainly value in entertainment. If buying virtual goods equates to virtual empowerment I can see the mixed feelings on selling a charlatans miracle elixir.

But if the experiences a person has are real in a virtual environment or game, isn't that the definition of personal value.

I'd like to see the sheister promotions cleaned up, and transparent revenue streams evolve in social games.

Fourth popular post, 7/10 Chris. It's a big deal looking at the new economy but I think this topic is better served by thr depth and care of Kevin Kelly's new economy. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. I'm only a couple dozen pages in but I'm a regular reader of Kevin's work. He probes deeper into the shift of value in our exports globally and what that could mean for our future commerce and business structures.

Re: The new economy

HumanoidMe — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:01:44 -0000

agree. I play with my kids and they seemed immune to the whole online ad schema just yet... they focus on the actual game playing and as long as it is fun, they will.

Re: The new economy

Kevin Spence — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:02:19 -0000

This model is hella sustainable, and it's how I see the web moving. Basic features for free, premium features cost $$$

Re: The new economy

Anees Uddin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:31:08 -0000

Seems like a quick buck economy at the moment, however i think there's room for more mature applications that don't offer spammish arbritary deals.

Re: The new economy

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:57:23 -0000

Trouble is, gen Ys and younger are ABANDONING Facebook. Growing demo on social networks are boomers not tweens.

Re: The new economy

Alexander Ainslie (@AAinslie) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:40:34 -0000

Chris, this is a similar revenue engine that supports the entire online & offline poker industry. A sustainable poker platform needs "Fish" (loosing or weak players) for the ecosystem to feed on. When the supply of fish decrease the predatory players move on to the next table or site.

I think it is fortunate that Zygna has Farmville and other revenue engines in its portfolio. It is my informed opinion that the probability is very high the DoJ (US Dept. of Justice) will come down on Zygna's poker offering.

I believe this looming legal and regulatory risk is the reason that Max Levchin and his Slide organisation and other well funded social gaming companies haven't gone after this juicy, fairly low hanging, opportunity to generate revenues at scale in very short time frame.
www.twitter.com/aainslie

Re: The new economy

sidviswanathan — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:00:56 -0000

I would imagine that as those who grow too old for virtual goods phase out, the new younger generation will step right in to take their place and if I'm not mistaken that's the segment growing the fastest within the Facebook community. Wonder if anyone will distribute real merchandise through Facebook channels using credits system

Re: The new economy

Burgher Jon — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:58:51 -0000

It's become more of a niche, but one shouldn't forget about Second Life in this conversation. Especially with enough money floating around in the second life for some woman in Germany to make $1M US "in game". http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: The new economy

Dan Frommer — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:16:38 -0000

This is an awesome post. That's all.

Re: The new economy

Gavin Baker — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:13:04 -0000

Wow - hadn't put it together quite like that. Well done! Reminds me of the TC post about companies paying facebook to drive traffic to.... a different part of facebook. http://www.techcrunch.com/2...

At the end of the day, I personally can't imagine paying real money for virtual goods, but I'm apparently in the minority! Only wish my brain worked in a way that it made sense to me.

Re: The new economy

chris dixon — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:59:09 -0000

Interesting. What's experian running? Free credit report stuff?

Re: The new economy

chris dixon — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:57:33 -0000

Yep, I've paid for guitar hero songs.

Re: The new economy

Ivan Kirigin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:56:19 -0000

Not all people paying are taking offers. Huge gaming platforms like X Box have thriving virtual goods businesses based on storing and processing credit cards. Those paying aren't necessarily young.

Most people who own rockband or guitar hero are going through the same process. It is not a fault of Zynga that advertising can be effectively utilized to bring people in game. It's a benefit. Harmonix would love it if you could see an ad on facebook, and be a few clicks away from giving them money while playing their game.

That said, I think offers are quite ugly. They offer a poor user experience. I'd prefer people just become banked at a younger age, or use some sort of game card system.

Re: The new economy

chudson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:33:37 -0000

Chris,

If you're interested in virtual goods (or have friends) who are, I'd encourage you to check out the Virtual Goods Summit (http://vgsummit2009.eventbr...) - we've been covering this space for 3 years and have a lot of the leading companies in the US and Asia presenting in late October.

Re: The new economy

chris dixon — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:59:55 -0000

They say Zynga is making >$100M in revenues, so I think it has caught on in the US.

Dude, I use Safari & FF only :) That's a screenshot from the myfuncards website.

Re: The new economy

Peter Caputa — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:59:53 -0000

This kind of arbitrage is pretty common, especially among the younger demographics. This has been going on since before myspace. The soc nets have just turned it into an art form. There is a report that Comscore did recently on who the biggest advertisers on the soc nets are. It's pretty interesting.

Not sure if I can paste a link here. But, here's the link: http://www.comscore.com/Pre...

Re: The new economy

Willan Johnson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:08:05 -0000

I believe the offers (Discover Card, Toolbar, etc) are served up by OfferPal (venture backed startup). So your model still holds, just that Zygna is getting a cut of the revenue from ASK...not whole $1 or $2).

Re: The new economy

Michael Jung — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:37:45 -0000

Virtual goods is so ... mhh ... an Asia thing. It never caught on in the west or europe as everybody (start-ups & investors) hoped. It has smth to do with the culture there. As with the target group.

But nice to know u misused IE for that analysis.

Re: The new economy

Greg Gentschev — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:22:00 -0000

Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. They've raised grinding to an art form. Think World of Warcraft with carrots.

Not to say that I didn't have an unfortunate Mafia Wars fling...

Re: The new economy

chris dixon — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:26:07 -0000

That would be super-meta!

Re: The new economy

david ingerman — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:20:59 -0000

You should get Facebook, Zynga and Ask to all advertise on your blog so you too can make a little something off the people who read about how each of the players make a little something off all of the people who click from one of their properties to another...

Re: The new economy

David Cancel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:56:42 -0000

To achieve full nirvana state Facebook needs to also provide the monetization options used within the apps. Then its a closed-loop and ensures new money keeps coming into the system.

I.E:

Google Adwords+SEO Secrets+Google Adsense == Nirvana

Re: The new economy

Andy Wibbels — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:55:48 -0000

I don't know if I'd say 'fun' but they do a good job of sucking you in. They always give you something new to do - like when you are waiting for your crops to mature you can go rake leaves or chase crows on the farms of your friends. Yeah, it's sick. :)

Re: The new economy

chris dixon — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:39:10 -0000

They supposedly have 50M active users. So if they get a $1/yr on average from each of one (1 toolbar) that's a big business.

Maybe I should play Farmville more - it's really fun? I'm usually more of an Xbox type.

Re: The new economy

Andy Wibbels — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:34:31 -0000

Our household has caught the Farmville bug and we've never had to buy extra seeds. Maybe they count on people how are bit more impatient than I.