{"id":4279,"date":"2006-05-24T12:51:15","date_gmt":"2006-05-24T12:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groonk.net\/blog\/?p=4279"},"modified":"2006-05-24T12:51:15","modified_gmt":"2006-05-24T12:51:15","slug":"freemium-is-the-new-business-casual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/2006\/05\/freemium-is-the-new-business-casual\/","title":{"rendered":"Freemium is the New Business Casual"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"blocked\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wired.com\/wired\/archive\/14.06\/posts.html?pg=7\" class=\"external external_icon\">The Madrid-based startup Fon, in which Skype is an investor, turns the freemium idea on its head \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and takes Web 2.0 a step further \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by letting users <em>make <\/em>money by doing without features<\/a>. Fon has a mad scheme to cover the earth with inexpensive, in some cases free, Wi-Fi. It even has its own crazy lexicon. People who have bought a Fon wireless router (or installed free Fon software on their own router) are Foneros; those who haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t are dismissed as Aliens. Some Foneros choose to share their connections with one another in return for free Net access at any Fon hot spot; they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re called Linuses (after Linus Torvalds). Others, known as Bills (as in Gates), choose to pay for access at Fon hot spots. In return, they get a cut of the revenue when an Alien pays to log on through their router.<\/p>\n<p>In the old days, building an international telecom infrastructure and growing its market share required a colossal pool of capital. Today, Foneros do both of those jobs themselves. Sure, the company has $22 million to burn, which is nothing to sneeze at. But it also has an advisory board full of A-list bloggers like Dan Gillmor and David Weinberger, a powerful engine propelling the network to critical mass.<\/p>\n<p>Bloggers are sometimes pigeon-holed as pundits or journalists. In the Web 2.0 economy, they can be kingmakers, channeling crowds of willing participants wherever- they like. <\/p><\/div>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/wired.com\/wired\/archive\/14.06\/posts.html?pg=7\" class=\"external external_icon\">wired<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Madrid-based startup Fon, in which Skype is an investor, turns the freemium idea on its head \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and takes Web 2.0 a step further \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by letting users make money by doing without features. Fon has a mad scheme to cover the earth with inexpensive, in some cases free, Wi-Fi. It even has its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-4279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-linkable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}