Mashup Business Models on CNET

John Musser, April 20th, 2006
Comments(1)

Elinor Mills from CNET yesterday delivered a good report on the state of mashup business models, or in this case, lack thereof: Mashups for fun–and Profit?. A few of the highlights:

“The main reason for caution is the very thing that makes mashups so popular–they’re fairly easy to create, and it’s not that difficult for someone to duplicate the more successful ones. On top of that, it’s not clear yet how much money can be made with these sites.”
That Trulia and Platial are two of the few sites that make extensive use of maps mashups that have recieved VC funding.
And that all-in-all the business model for mashups remain to be proven.

There are good quotes with some mashup developers and smart folks like Peter Rip, who raised similarly valid questions back at Mashup Camp, Mike Pegg at Google Maps Mania, and representatives from Google and Microsoft.

Tags: Mapping, Money

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One Response to “Mashup Business Models on CNET”

April 22nd, 2006 at 1:07 pm

Comment by: Sean O'Rourke

also interesting: “Tom Bailey (Virtual Earth) said Microsoft also is planning to put ads on maps and share revenue with mashups.”

So much focus is on the masher/mixer models, but the models start (or not) with the API providers, i.e. whether revenue will be direct or indirect.

Competition should help bring this into focus. If one map provider shares revenue, developers will take notice. If it has a meaningful impact, the other providers will have to take notice, too.