Business Models
===============
Advertising
-----------
Display ads | Yahoo!
Search ads | Google
Text ads | Google
Video ads | Hulu, Twitch.tv
Audio ads | Pandora, Radio, Podcasts
Promoted content | Twitter, Tumblr
Paid-content links | Outbrain
Recruitment ads | LinkedIn
Lead generation | MoneySuperMarket, ZocDoc
Affiliate fees | The Wirecutter
Classifieds | Craigslist
Featured listings | Yelp, Super Pages;
E-mail ads | Yahoo, MSN
Ad-retargeting | Criteo
Real-time-intent ad delivery |
Location-based offers | Foursquare
Sponsorships/Site take-overs | Pandora
Lifetime, unique ad space | NSFWCORP Conflict Tower, milliondollarhomepage.com
Sponsorships | Twitch.tv users
Commerce
--------
Retailing | Zappos
Marketplace | Etsy
Crowd-sourced marketplace | Threadless
Excess-capacity markets | Uber, AirBnB
Vertically-integrated commerce | Warby Parker
Aggregator | Lastminute.com
Flash sales | Gilt Groupe, Vente Privee, Fab
Group buying | Groupon
Digital goods/downloads | iTunes
Virtual goods | Zynga
Training | Cloudera(?), -> Coursera
Pay what you want | Radiohead
Commission | SharesPost
Commission per order | Seamless, GrubHub
Auction | eBay
Reverse Auction | Priceline
Barter for services | SwapRight
Subscription
------------
Software as a Service (SaaS) | Salesforce
Service aaS | Shopify
Content aaS | Spotify, Netflix
Platform aaS (PaaS) | dotCloud, Heroku
Infrastructure aaS (IaaS) |
Freemium SaaS | Dropbox
Ethical premium | Proposed by Clayton Cubitt
Donations | Wikipedia
Recurring donations (w/ rewards) | Patreon
Sampling | Birchbox, BarkBox
Membership services | Amazon Prime
Support and maintenance | 10gen, Red Hat, Cloud66
Paywall | New York Times, Andrew Sullivan
Strict Paywall | The Information
Porous Paywall | NSFWCORP
Voice and video conferencing | Uberconference
Newsletter | Ricardo Bueno
Fremium video subscription | Twitch.tv, YouTube
Peer to Peer (P2P)
------------------
P2P lending | Lending Club
P2P gambling | BetFair
P2P buying | Etsy
P2P insurance |
P2P computing | CrasPlan storage, SETI@home
P2P service | Mechanical Turk, TaskRabbit
P2P mobile WiFi/tethering |
Transaction-Processing
----------------------
Merchant acquiring | PayPal (On-/Offline), Stripe (OnL), Square (OffL)
Intermediary | IP Commerce (POS 2.0), CardSpring
Acquiring processing | Paymentech
Bank transfer | Dwolla
Bank depository offering | Simple, Movenbank (spread on average deposits)
Bank card issuance | Simple (interchange fee per transaction)
Fullfilment | Amazon
Messaging | Peer-to-Peer SMS, IM, Group Messaging
Telephony (public networks) | Skype out/in
Telephony (private cloud) | Native Skype
Mobile payment gateway | Braintree
Platform monetization (“tax”) | Facebook Credits, iOS 30/70 cut
Licensing
---------
Per seat | Sencha
Per device/server | QlikView
Per application instance | Adobe Photoshop
Per site | Private cloud on internal infrastructure
Patent | Qualcomm
Brand | Sesame Street
Indirect | Apple Volume Purchasing
Data
----
User data | BlueKai
Business data | Duedil
User intelligence | YouGov
Search Data | Chango
Real-time consumer intent data | Yieldbot
Benchmarking services | Comscore
Market research | GLG
Mobile
------
Paid-app downloads | WhatsApp
In-app purchases | Zynga Poker
In-app subscriptions | New York Times app
Advertising | Flurry, AdMob
Digital-to-physical | Red Stamp, Postagram
Gaming
------
Freemium (virtual currency) | Zynga
Subscription | World of Warcraft
Premium | Xbox games
DLC (downloadable content) | Call of Duty
Ads | addictinggames.com
Open Source (FOSS)
------------------
Consulting | Red Hat, Nginx, Revsys
Support |
Hosting/Infrastructure | WordPress
Free for some, but not for others |
Ads | Mozilla
Bundled features (e.g. search) | Mozilla, Opera
Awesome list! Thoughts on categories for the open source section folks are talking about in above comments:
Open Source (Freemium):
Software companies who provide a free, open source (note: not FOSS) baseline product and monetize conversions to an augmented premium version.
Example: Cloudera, MapR, AlienVault
Open Source (Consulting Services):
Software companies focusing on monetizing expertise in deploying an open source suite or developing a customized version of that suite for customers.
Example: Red Hat, 10Gen, Nginx, Hortonworks
Open Source (Hosting/Infrastructure Management Services):
Software companies who monetize the hosting and/or continued management of an open source software suite.
Example: Wordpress.
Open Source (Class or Usage Licensed Premium):
Software companies who provide and develop open source software for free and monetize its use by a certain class of customers (e.g.: free for educational use but not for professional use), by its inclusion in a certain type of product, or in its use in a specific use case.
Example: Struggling to think of a good one here but leaning towards something like a software library. Thoughts?
Open Source (Ad-Supported):
Software companies who develop open source software for free and derive revenue from advertising or lead-gen referrals.
Example: Mozilla