Final Presentation

Hello, this is my final presentation on Jing:
http://www.screencast.com/users/musenish/folders/Jing/media/3356304a-22a8-4d96-98e2-17d84c6d4225

CrowdSPRING

CrowdSPRING is an online commercial platform based on providing creative services such as logos creation, business cards, graphic and Web site design, marketing services, etc. The company puts on relations the so-called “buyers” (clients that want creative services) and “creatives” (designers, illustrators, writers, or photographers that produce these services). CrowdSPRING also provides community tools, such as public profiles with feedback, ratings and stats, private messaging, portfolios, and community forums on its Website. Moreover, it offers legal protection for buyers and sellers, it protects both sides against intellectual property issues by offering completely free, customized written legal agreements for every transaction.

The concept of this company is the following: Buyers who need a creative service simply post what they need, when they need it and how much they want to pay. Once posted, several thousands of creatives from around the world will submit actual work for the buyer to review, without bids or proposals. As the submissions come in, buyers are able to review, sort, rate, provide feedback and collaborate with creatives until they find the “the best one.” Normally all the procedures take 20 days, which includes an average of 11 days of bidding and selecting and 9 days to finish the project.
CrowdSPRING creates minimum prices, sharing statistics to help the buyer set the price or increase the rapidity of response. Its infrastructure builds the underlying project management infrastructure which includes file upload, project specifications and communications, including private or public comments, and ratings.

Customers (“buyers”) get more and more interested in this site for several reasons:
- They can have creative services with small budgets for projects (beginning from $250 for a company logo)
- They often have a big choice of designs
- Besides, they often get a fast and high-qualified “breakthrough” design
- If there are less 25 entries (proposed services), customers are refunded
- There is the possibility to launch a project made to order
- The site offers the protection of property rights
- They have the opportunity to provide feedback and ratings
- They get the opportunity to find a talented creative for long-term work outside CrowdSPRING
- Different coupons, promotions and discounts offered by the site

Suppliers (“creatives”) resort to this site for many reasons such as:
- They come up with the designs, including revisions, for clients, with the chance of getting paid.
- The possibility to work on interesting projects
- This site allows the creatives to find and to enlarge their potential clients due to the Internet
- A chance to find a job for young employees who have no portfolios, no experience, no contacts
- The possibility to create profile and portfolio on the site
- A chance for people to show their talent for design
- This site gives the opportunities to showcase their work to many potential clients
- Besides, CrowdSPRING provides opportunities to interact with other Creatives

But on the other hand the suppliers face some risks and problems why CrowdSPRING is much criticized for:
- Competition – as every time offering the product there are other designers (about 80), so the competition is rather harsh
- Risk to spend much time and to earn nothing - The creatives are reasonably protected (the client’s money is in an escrow account, security features prevent stealing ideas, etc.).

CrowdSPRING acts as the intermediary in the transaction and places the bounty in escrow. This helps the designer feel confident they will get paid. Crowdspring offers a money-back guarantee for buyers if they don’t get at least 25 entries.

Their source revenue model is very simple, they get 15% commission on the awards offered by buyers. Despite a short-term existence, CrowdSPRING won different awards such as WIRED Magazine’s Small Biz 2008 competition, Business.com’s best people solution competition, the Illinois Technology Association’s Newcomer award in 2009, Webby Award, and a Stevie Award for Best Product/Service. Due to these awards, they got a large sum of money.

There are some concepts that form the basis of CrowdSPRING activity.
First of all, CrowdSPRING is crowdsourcing site. It offers an online environment for people to collaborate and contribute new creative ideas. It sets up challenges with prizes to see what the crowd comes up with.
Besides, it applies “Spec” concept that suggests doing any work on a speculative basis, without a prior agreement that the suppliers will be paid for their work.

The CrowdSPRING model is innovative not only because it differs in remarkable ways from the traditional model to buying and selling creative services, but also because there was introduced a new approach such as:
- Build strong community to work more successfully together
- Education (they spend much time collaborating, educating and learning in the forums, they wrote some guides for starting-up the business)
- Money back guarantee
- Legal agreements
- Respect for Intellectual Property
- Pro project (to keep the confidentiality of big companies’ during all the projects)
- Enforce communication after posting the project (via RSS, sending emails, posting public and private messages)
- Reputation system (two-way reputation system that encourages rating buyers and creatives)

Their marketing strategy is well-thought:
- They participate in worthy charities and non-profits with graphic design needs.
- They wrote several guides to help buyers around the world (“ 10 Logo Design Tips for Buyers”, “10 Tips For Buyers To Effectively Manage Design Projects”, e-book to help designers create legal agreements for their projects).
- CrowdSPRING uses old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing that comes with a new-technology twist (in their work they use Twitter, Facebook, Craigslist, etc)
- They customize the buyers by coupons, discounts and promotions

CrowdSPRING has several competitors using the same concept.


One of them is BootB. This is also an online platform that helps to find the best marketing concepts and strategies, graphic design solutions or ideas for advertising campaigns by addressing the unlimited number of creative talents from all over the world.

Another example is Denook. It is also an on-line community of designers from around the world that create the project ideas: logo, website, apparel, stationary, etc.

The concept used in CrowdSPRING was also applied in other industries.

One of the examples is Threadless, an on-line community-based tee shirt company. The members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online. the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an on-line store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit.

Another good example is iStockphoto, an online, royalty free, international microstock photography provider operating with the micropayment business model. Images cost between 1 and 20 credits, depending on size. This site claims to be "internet’s original member-generated image and design community."
The online photo library contains over 4 million images, illustrations, video tapes, Flash-clips, etc, contributed by over 50,000 photographers.

This business model seems so tempting and advantageous that can be applied in many other industries such as electronic products, software ideas, fashion, music production, architecture, technology, etc.

This site has many possibilities for growth and for revenue increase. First of all, it is necessary to point out that CrowdSPRING uses already brokerage model taking the fees for each transaction. Moreover, it applies the infomediary model using customer loyalty program by providing coupons and discounts.
In their business it could apply advertising model through banner ads, or adverstising via RSS feeds. Besides, it can take a little fee for user registration.

There are other ways of developing the site. They can introduce new and more complex services such as audio, video, copywriting, animation, photos, flash-clips, digital services, etc. They could invent some Freemium services such as having access to some important database, more creative services, etc. Besides, they could provide other advantages for the clients in order to attract more customers.

We saw above that they wrote some guides for starting-up the business and some tips for leading business activity. To my mind, it would be good idea to keep on writing such kind of training aids and to start selling them widely or to place them on-line and to take the fee for acceding them. The managers could also give some training programs for all volunteers in order to share their experience, especially taking into consideration the success of this business. Keeping on developing the partnership with non-profit organizations and taking part in charity seems also very interesting.

Link to the Netvibes

This is the link to my personal page in netvibes:
http://www.netvibes.com/musenish

Innocentive Question

Innocentive is an open innovative community that of people that resolve challenging problems in science, technology, business, etc.
Their concept was based on connecting the companies (seekers) and scientists (solvers) to resolve the problems. But this system saw one disadvantage such as research culture companies are not capable in understanding well the answers produced by Innocentive's solvers.
That's why Innocetive decided to introduce" a new service which is called Innocentive @work that is internal web-based community customized by Innocentive. It applies the best internal resources for the organization that is conformed to the organization's culture.
It is innovative for the way the organizations practice R&D. It helps the organizations to create an internal web-based collaborative community for problem solvers and helps to resolve the questions more effectively.

Ventes Privees

Ventes-privees.com is the site that holds invitation-only closeout sales. This site deals with big marks brands (Givenchy, Longchamp, Armani, Diesel, Electrolux, etc) and offers different products such as clothes and accessoires, wines and champagnes, toys, sports equipment, high-tech, watches proposed by famous and notorious brands

According to the article on http://www.lentreprise.com/3/3/5/vente-privee-com-reussira-t-il-a-s-imposer-comme-reseau-de-distribution-en-ligne_20570.html site, Ventes-privees.com was created in 2001 and has seen a huge growth. This company came with its own concept on the market that made it innovator and leader with the turnover of 510 million euros, 7, 5 millions members in France, and 300 recruitments in 2008. Its concept is simple but at the same time very effective: big brands have the possibility to sell their end of line stocks, via a closed distribution network, without waiting that their distributors sell their own stock. So the sales pass in general by putting together promotional shots and videos featuring fashion models and original music during a short period of time (several days) in different domains (textile and accessoires, deco, etc) at a discount price (from 30%-70%, sometimes 80%).

Vente-privees.com is a Private Sales website that means that only people that have access to the web-site can buy the products. For entering the site it is necessary to subscribe with frenzied invitation-only. In fact, the person who sends the invitation to other people gets a prize ticket for several euros that boosted the company’s development. So only the members can take part in the sales and they are notified in advance about them by e-mail. The time that the customer waits for its products is about 16 days.

Besides, it goes further in the article that from its start-up in 2001 Vente-privees.com has consolidated as a leader. From 2007 it started dealing with mass media. In 2006 it expanded in other countries: Germany, Spain, Italy and Great Britain.

This concept is very useful and advantageous for the customers, especially at the period of financial crisis. It allows them purchasing famous brands’ high-quality items for very low price. For suppliers it allows to sell products set without cannibalizing their distribution network with low margin but with a sure ROI. It will be always the problem of overstock and close-out so this concept is a good solution to them for selling out all the products. Company owners just take advantage of this concept by making high profit.

It is important to notice that this new concept was so tempting that many French and foreign compaies just copied it, and nowadays they count more than 70 competitors. One of them are BrandAlley.com, and Showroomprive.com.

Created in 2005, BrandAlley.com has seen an exceptional growth in 300% between 2007 and 2008 with its 2,2 million constant members. In fashion domain, BrandAlley managed to position very well and differently from its competitors thanks to its concept. It is based on the particularity of offering fashion items, accessories and decoration at a discount price through three pillars:
Ø Permanent brochure that gathers a large choice of items in all fields
Ø The place “Boutique” for brands
Ø Close-out campaigns that are limited in time
This unique positioning on the market allowed BrandAlley to make it notice on the market, to gain the popularity and to grow very fast. Thanks to its immediate success, BrandAlley established in Great Britain in 2008.

Showroomprive.com is also the site that gains much popularity and grows very fast. It is also based on the concept of invitation-only close-out sales. These sales concern famous brands’ clothes for men, women and children, accessories, cosmetics, underwear, home facilities, decoration, etc. The sales are also limited in time and the adherents receive in advance the email about them. This site was created by two entrepreneurs that are professional in on-line media and close-out field and private sale offline. In 2009 they think to make the profit of 60 million euros. And the next year they plan to launch their company in Spain and in Britain.

There are different sources of revenues for Ventes-Privees.com. First of all, it retains its margin from 20%-40% on each selling item. Besides, as it was mentioned before, all the sales are followed by music. And Vente-Privees’ music became so popular that nowadays Vente-privee.com sells a CD of 15 of the tracks on its site. Moreover, they offer paid annual loyalty cards for customers that want to have more benefits.

This concept is so advantageous and enticing that can be applied in many industries such as food, beverages, real-estate, tourism, gadgets, and even automobile.

This concept was applied in wine industry that proves the site Caveprivee.com. This site is oriented for wine amateurs who would like to taste good French and foreign wine at a discount price. In comparison with other ventes privees sites, Caveprivee.com doesn’t offer the close-out sales but on the contrary the products are being researched. The principle is just taking advantage of the moments’ opportunities and to sell good wine at low price.

Diamantunique.com is the only site on-line that offers jewelry and diamants at about 50% discount. This site is also based on the concept of invitation-only and the sales organized by campaings that are limited in time. The products on this site are all certified, it is possible to pay the purchase in 3 times, and they provide a special delivery service and 1 month for the change or return.

CaroOcar.com is also made on the ventes-privees.com concept. This is the site of private sales automobiles offering second-hand cars bargained directly with distributor. The members of this site can take advantage of special tariffs, professional guarantee and a present offered at a purchase. The invitation-only system brings benefits for people who send invitations: if one of their friends buys a car, the first ones gain a present.

After having analyzed this new concept, it is possible to say that due to technologies development this concept will keep on developing, covering more and more audience and expanding in other industries as there was the case with already existing sites for cars, jewelry, real-estate, etc.

Aeroflot - business model

Aeroflot is Russian airlines.

On the site they use brokerage model, they take the fees for the reservation of hotels on their site.

Besides, they use advertising model as a source of revenues.

Affliate model is also applied in their web business, they place the other web-sites on their site, the commercials, etc.

Moreover, subscription model is used.

"Tripwolf" analysis

Tripwolf is a travel guide, social network, reviews information, photo and video sharing platform, travel booking and blog posting site that allows the users to get all information about more 50000 destinations in the world (Europe, Asia, America, etc). This is the site that contains much tourist information that is being enriched by information, photos, comments, advice and recommendations of users and professionals.

This site might be very helpful to those who are planning their trip. They can get to know what the best hotels, restaurants, places to visit are or just get the general information about the country, its culture, traditions, etc. Besides, there is the possibility to download free of charge tourist guide in PDF format of an interested country. It is important to point out that “Tripwolf” targets first of all German and English markets. They have recently launched Spanish, French and Italian versions that allow this site to cover a huge audience. Their goal is to become the leading European web 2.0 guide for both inbound and outbound tourism in Europe.

The information placed on the site is provided by journalists, professional editorial from print travel guides like “Marco Polo” and “Footprint”, experienced travelers, or local experts (so-called “Trip Gurus”), and the users that want to share their trip experience with the others. Moreover, the users can create new locations, upload and edit content, then share their favorite places around the world with friends.
One of the big Tripwolf’s advantages is the possibility to add friends, send messages to other members, post status or location, and mark the favorite places to visit. Tripwolf facilitates its communication with a big audience due to its presence in such networks as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. They are going to join other social media such as StudiVZ (German Facebook clone), LinkedIn, Xing (German LinkedIn clone), Beebo, etc.

Besides, Tripwolf focuses a lot on partnership development. It can boast being partner with such institution “Footprint”, a print travel guidebook Footprint’s expert travel writers are known for providing intelligent, informative and culturally aware material. Or, “travellious” that is an on-line guide book. But it is interesting to know that among Tripwolf’s partners there are “Moving to London” (pieces of advice how to move to this city), “American passport” (visas’ support site with other tourist information), “Study Global Language courses”, the site that offers language education in different countries, “123people” is a people search engine that gathers personal information in the Internet.

Tripwolf is a company that is being developed financially very fast. Tripwolf CEO has recently raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by European travel publisher MairDumont Group along with investor Dieter von Holtzbrinck, a German entrepreneur who was chief of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group for more than two decades.
Besides, it is necessary to mention constant Tripwolf revenues:
Advertising (display ads, Cost-per-click (CPC) deals, Google Adsense, ads in newsletter). Tripwolf has advertising networks representing in US, Canada, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.
Commission on each flight or hotel reservation. This system is applied in all on-line reservation centers like booking.com, hrs, etc.
Subscription from "longtail" partners. Tripwolf offers marketing services for niche travel businesses like diving schools, bed & breakfasts, etc. for a monthly / yearly subscription price like in yellow pages.
They get special representation on Tripwolf and tools for staying in contact with their customers.

There are other sites that have the same concepts that Tripwolf has. For example, “Epic Trip” is also a social platform that gathers the travelers that share their trip experience. This site combines photos, videos, blogs, reviews of destinations, attractions, and hotels. It also possesses travel guides as Tripwolf and has the link with such social networks as Facebook, etc.

Another competitor can be called “PlanetEye”. This site contains geotagged photography; leading edge mapping technology and extensive content from in-house writers and a growing number of professional sources. It is designed for travelers who want a new and exciting way to explore where to go and what to do. This site offers interesting photographs, attractions, hotels and restaurants discovered on PlanetEye when they are planning a trip or simply putting together travel ideas. But in comparison to Tripwolf it is necessary to suscribe to these sites mentioned above.
Besides these sites, there are the similar ones like "WAYN" (Where Are You Now?), "TripUP", "HereOrThere", and "Travel Muse" that are travel-based social networks that aim to allow users to keep tabs on the friends they’ve met around the world, and meet new ones as well. They also offer the standard social networking features (photo sharing, video uploads, messaging) to foster these connections. In addition, users can share travel reviews for various categories like accommodation, dining, and nightlife.

Tripwolf is a company that focuses much on its technical development. The innovation that has been done recently by this company is Tripwolf iPhone application. So users can gather all the professional travel information currently available on the iPhone without the need to be constantly connected to the Internet. The Tripwolf iPhone application also allows users to choose how much information they want to use offline and also takes different network connection speeds into consideration. Users have the choice of downloading either text only or the whole package that includes pictures. All the functions within the application can also be performed offline and seamlessly synchronize with the Tripwolf platform once an Internet connection is found.

Concerning this model, it can be applied offline. For example, it is possible to create brochures that will include the professional and travelers’ reviews and notes; it can be possible to share photos, recommendations, pieces of advice, etc. But in this case the feedback will be much slower than on-line.
Tripwolf is a fast-developing company due to its innovations, social networks, and new products. Their business model seems to be sustainable for their services diversification, customers/suppliers communication, partnership development. Besides, the company is always searching for something new that makes it stronger on the market.

Tripwolf can increase its revenue by targeting other markets. It was said that it focuses in priority German and English markets and it started covering French, Spanish and Italian markets. But for example Russian and Chinese markets are very interesting, especially for their recent economic development. Tripwolf can also join other social networks as vkontakte (Russian Facebook clone).
The other measure that can be applying is customer loyalty program by providing the discounts or some promotion campaigns for constant clients.
Tripwolf might also use Freemium services such as providing more and up-dated information about some novelties in tourism world, the latest promotions for tickets and hotels, and offering some advantage if the followers subscribe to these services.
Tripwolf is also able to diversify its site. In general, it is destinated for the travelers, but it is possible to provide the info about business trips or unite the professionals in tourism on this site where they will be able to share their experience and give the piece of advice to the travelers.
Tripwolf applies already affiliate business model using Banner Exchange, CPC and Revenue Sharing. Besides, Tripwolf can keep on developing its partnership with other institutions. Moreover, it can take the commission for indirect advertising as placing the restaurants, night clubs, casinos in the column TOP. And it is necessary to continue the development with “longtail partners” that can be a big source of revenue.

http://www.epictrip.com/

http://www.planeteye.com/

InnoCentive - More Open

Solvers – InnoCentive can show people suscribed to the same problem and they can gather in order to resolve this challenging problem together that can lead to the better result.
Seekers – for the one problem seekrs can create one unique forum to gather the solvers that can help the others to discuss the problem
InnoCentive :
Searching for the partnership with other Scientific Institutions from developing countries (there are Human resources there but they don’t have many possibilities to reveal and to develop their knowledge)

To carry out more ads in the web and through their partnership

To create InnoCentive centers in different countries, especially in BRIC countries where there is mucn scientific potential (the presentatives offices that can explain in details to everybody what is the concept of InnoCentive)

"InnoCentive"

“InnoCentive” is a virtual portal that unites different companies, institutions, organizations and famous scientists engaged in different fields such as business and entrepreneurship, chemistry, computer science, life science, maths, etc. InnoCentive provides powerful platform on-line that allows big companies to boost the innovations in the scientific fields by presenting financial support.

The main goal of “InnoCentive” is to come up with the solutions together with these institutions to different “challenging problems”. It gives the possibility to scientists or researchers to take part in decision-making of different problems and tasks that are relevant for modern science, industry, etc and at the same time to earn a certain amount of money. “InnoCentive” helps to facilitate the access to talented scientists and provide additional potential in scientific problems decision-making.

“InnoCentive” gathers on its virtual platform so-called “seekers” and “solvers”.
Seekers could be any any corporation, government agency, or non-profit organization, looking to find innovative solutions for technical problems or a set of needs.
“Solvers” can be different people such as engineers, scientists, inventors, and business people with expertise in life sciences, engineering, chemistry, math, computer science, and entrepreneurship. Presenting solution to the problem, they can win awards depending on the challenge.

Moreover “InnoCentive” leads a huge campaign in searching for the partnership in their work with Universitiies, Scientific Academies and Organizations, Research Instituions all over the world but it focuses in particular in such countries as Russia, China and India.
Besides Scientific Institutions, “InnoCentive” builds up the relations with different organizations such as Rockefeller Foundation, the goal of which is to reinforce the creative forces of globalization, supporting breakthrough solutions to 21st century challenges. Together they decided to work in the frame of non-profit programs. The Rockefeller Foundation will select organizations that will be eligible to use the platform and pay the associated access and service fees. The Foundation will also pay for successfully solved problems.

“InnoCentive” works is general with Corporate Companies and Non-Profit Organizations. This network attracted many institutions for several reasons: it is the quickest way to find “the solvers”, to spend less money for R&D department, to save confidentialety and to provide Intellectual Property Defense and in the end to have the solution to their problem. Even they have to pay the fee for placing their demand and for searching for the solver, it turns out to be less expensive if to continue to invest much money in R&D department.
Concerning the revenue, several sources have been already mentioned above: partnership with different organizations as Rockefeller Foundation, the deposit that the seekers pay while placing their demands. Besides, the seekers also pay the rewards for the best solutions and a commission of 20% or more to “InnoCentive”. Moreover, “InnoCentive” concept work seems so profitable that in 5 years it managed to attract 75 investors like Spencer Trask Ventures Inc., Omidyar Network, etc. It is necessary to add that “InnoCentive” has carried out a new strategic paid consulting offering, that will help organizations benchmark their open innovation readiness, develop custom innovation approaches and advise them on how best to engage in the cultural and process changes necessary to be successful.
As we saw, the model that is applied by “InnoCentive” had a huge success. As it provides advantageous conditions for customers and suppliers, its market share will be growing. Its growth can be depicted as a sustainable one due to the century of science and technology development. I don’t think that this model can be applied off-line because the Internet provides quick and efficient feedback, and in addition to that, thanks to the Internet development, more and more people can become the users of this model.
It is interesting to remark that “InnoCentive” is not a unique on the market and, for example, there exist two other big competitors that can be mentioned: Ninesigma (http://www.ninesigma.net/) and YourEncore (http://www.yourencore.com/).

Ninesigma is also on-line portal concerning innovations that helps the companies to search for the specialists on the labor market. The company’s core mission is to work on behalf of its clients to source innovative ideas, technologies, products and services from outside their organization quickly and effectively by connecting them with the best innovators from around the world (scientists, university research departments, and technology incubators)

Another competitor is “YourEncore” where the concept of work is the same one as it is in “InnoCentive” and “Ninesigma”. The company is based on providing services in the alliance innovation, regulatory, packaging, manufacturing, and quality auditing and assessment areas of pharmaceutical and life sciences, consumer sciences, food sciences, specialty materials, chemical, electronic, high-tech, and aerospace and defense industries. It recruits and manages a network of recently retired and/or, experienced scientific and engineering professionals. Thanks to their proven experience, they provide the clients to help accelerate their pace of innovation. “YourEncore” allows retirees to remain engaged in their companies' projects while maintaining the flexibility and freedom of retirement.

Of course, nowadays in the century of harsh competition it is necessary to go forward developing new strategies in attracting more customers and increasing more revenues.
One of the biggest disadvantages of “InnoCentive” web-site is that it is totally in English and there is no translation into other languages. As it develops relations all over the world, it could be a good idea to translate it into the main languages (French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic).
One of the opportunities in targeting big audience is to pass by different networks as Facebook, Twitter, etc. with their million clients coverage.
It can create so-called the community of the scientists all over the world that can interact through “InnoCentive” web-site and change their experience, knowledge and ideas.
We saw that this model is becoming more popular and “InnoCentive” has to keep on establishing relationship with as many Institutions as possible and searching for other investors. Besides, “InnoCentive” has to carry out different advertising campaigns as nowadays it is almost impossible to become famous and competitive on the market without good ads.
“InnoCentive” can stake in future on diversifying its fields, on working with new materials, technologies and technical communication facilities, on attracting famous “seekers” (giant companies) and “solvers” (famous scientists) and on providing new services (for example, new forms of consulting, providing insurance against the risks, etc).

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/business/84/8426bus1.html
http://www.chem.msu.su/rus/Innocentive/

Long Tail Concept

Long Tail concept describes the niche strategy of businesses that sell a large number of unique items in general in small quantities. This concept stipulates the collective demand for less-popular items can exceed the all the most popular added together (for example, Amazon, Rhapsody, etc)

The customer in charge environnement is the concept that defines the act when the client chooses him/herself the product he/she wants to find or to purchase. And typing a needed product, the searching engine starts offering different sites with a large array of products, in such a way the client can choose what he/she exactly wants.

Analyzing these two definitions I can say that long tail concept fits ideally with the concept customer in charge environment. The clients choose the « star » products (the best products) and in such a way the long tail concept allows to the web-site owners to understand better customers’ needs and wishes and to identify the niches in order to offer to the client the product that he/she really wants.

For reinforcing my conviction that long tail concept fits with charge in customer environment we can take the example of « Daily Motion », the site where the Internet users can see and place videos they want. « Daily motion » site is a perfect example of long tail example because it carries large collections of music just as easily as just a small selection This site is made in such a way that Internet users can type any name of the song or clip and to find many offers. This site is also referred to « charge in customer » environment because Internet users can vote for the clips, can express their opinions leaving the comments, make indirect promotion of some clips, as it was the case with the French singer Gregoire that became very popular due the Internet users.

http://www.neteco.com/53684-benjamin-bejbaum-dailymotion-applique-le-concept-de-la-longue-traine-a-la-video.html

http://www.slideshare.net/salke/freemium-1577099

What is Freemium?

Freemium is a new concept made from two separate words : free, and premium.
The idea of the freemium is to offer some kind of basic service to people for free, and to wait that the good news spread from mouth to mouth.
But at the same time a "better" service can be provided which is qualified by "Premium" service, that you will cost a certain amount of money to customers. This Premium service will make them take advantage of more than the regular customers, so they may add value to their profile in comparison with the others.

The freeness of the services you will offer to your customer will eventually lead them to acknowdlege the quality of your services, and without any move from you, they will register for some non-free services themselves because they will trust into your engagement. So, the free services might be a very powerful meaning of increasing your sales.

It has been invented by Fred Wilson in 2006, who said :
"Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base."

One of the most common example i have in mind is my free anti-virus, a very common and widely used, which is called "Antivir". This anti virus is a Freemium, in the way that anyone can download it and install it on as many computers he needs to. Everyday, while the computer is running, the anti virus program will try to update its virus database. While remaining free, the antivirus program will tell you by a message popup that you can buy the Premium licence of the anti virus, which will lead you to overcome the popup window and brings the protection to be more effective.

Another example is the website Dailymotion. While its use can remain totally free, this will lead the users to be able to upload video using the lowest quality available. If you will buy the Premium user licence, you will be able to use a far better quality to upload your videos. Your work will gain in quality and visibility.