From Conceptual Trends Current Topics:

“This is interesting. A fairly detailed taxonomy of the existing business models for web sites. The breakdown is here. Using their taxonomy the researches than examined one Top 100 web app list for 2008 and found that:

34% use Advertising, 12% a Variable Subscription model, and 8% each for Virtual Products (typically digital downloads), Related Products (typically a large software company offering a free product to attract you to their platform) and Pay-Per-Use.

The graphic pie-chart display of those results look like this.
(I.T.A = Advertising”

Via Conceptual Trends and Current Topics.

I have noticed a massive upsurge in interest in Visual Thinking and Information Design.

Whilst Edward Tufte is no doubt the prime mover in this field, I think Dan Roam’s 2008 bestseller “The Back of the Napkin” (website) has given a huge boost to the field by popularising Visual Thinking and giving people simple tools to apply it to the problems in their lives.

Here are some good links on Visual Design and Information Design

Visual Design

http://www.vizthink.com/blog/

http://flowingdata.com

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/ ( see and use this guy’s brilliant work via Flickr)

http://www.thebackofthenapkin.com/ ( book on Amazon)

Information Design

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language

The Harvard Business Schools’ Working Knowledge blog is warning is to “watch out for a new brand of consumer in 2008: the middle-aged Simplifier.”

She finds herself surrounded by too much stuff acquired. She is increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that it was all worth the effort. Out will go luxury purchases, conspicuous consumption, and a trophy culture.

Tomorrow’s consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home.

…The Simplifiers have four characteristics:

• First, they perceive that they have more
  stuff than they need. Sure, they may collect something specific like
  porcelain figurines as a hobby, but they are the opposite of the pack
  rats who fill their attics and basements with
  “you-never-know-when-you-might-need-it” stuff.
• Second,
  they want to collect experiences, not possessions. And they give
  experiences rather than goods as gifts to friends and relatives.
  Experiences may seem ephemeral. They cannot be inventoried except in
  the form of “Kodak” moments; but they do not tie you down, require no
  maintenance, and permit variety-seeking instincts to be quickly
  satisfied. Dining out, foreign travel, and learning a new sport will
  prove more resilient than expected in the face of recession.
• Third,
  their stuff embarrasses them. Their Range Rovers no longer tell the
  world that they are sophisticated town and country socialites. There
  are simply too many of them on the road to offer much social status.
  Worse, they now signal the irresponsible selection of a gas-guzzler.
• Fourth,
  they have wealth that is so assured that it no longer requires
  conspicuous display. They lease their cars, rent other people’s holiday
  homes, and would happily outsource other aspects of their lifestyles.
  They reject the marketer’s continual pressure to spend more money on
  possessions rather than on education, health care, and other social
  goods.

Read the rest of it here.

This is an example of market seams that companies need to find and exploit if they are to survive a serious recession.

It is worth keeping an eye on people following trends and microtrends (see also The Times Microtrends section).

My fellow blogger and Communications Director at DNS Europe, Steve Hurford,  has put together a great position statement on the future of Cloud Computing and its relationship to Grids. Here is an excerpt:

Grids are the building blocks of future clouds

Without knowing today exactly what the future of cloud computing will look like, customers are faced with the decision of what choices to make that give real commercial benefits today and greatest flexibility for tomorrow. As we see it, future clouds will be formed from and accessible by those customers which adopt grid hosting infrastructures, develop multi-tennant applications and offer services that are not tethered by specific location, operating system, physical resources or other geographical constraints. Not only will they be able to integrate with future clouds but they will be best placed to take advantage of other cloud-enabled services and to offer their own services to other cloud contributors.

Clouds should not and will not be “owned”

The term cloud computing is today being used by many providers who, in fact, are actually offering Grid Hosting. Taking Google and Amazon as examples, they have opened up their own infrastructure for customers to deploy their own applications on their “clouds” and use their compute resources for a measured service fee. More correctly, these infrastructures should be called “grids” and the services called “Utility Computing”. Where these offerings substantially differ from our believe of what Cloud Computing will become is in their attempt to own the cloud. Ultimately we believe that this is a futile effort due to the pace of change of market requirements and their restricted service platform development capabilities. Provided that they eventually adopt the principles of open platform integration, they will however become very serious components of the future of cloud computing.

From grids to clouds

Under perhaps the simplest model for differentiating grids and clouds, grids are essentially building blocks, or discrete physical resources that will one day make up, or enable, clouds. One of the key drivers for businesses must therefore be to invest in a technology which facilitates the easiest transition from one to the other. A technology which will enable real cost savings today with open opportunities for tomorrow. A technology which provides a birthing ground for new application and service architectures which will one day fly the nest and reach full maturity in “the cloud”.

From: http://www.dnseurope.net/cloud_computing.html

We are always keen to hear from anyone that has some ideas about all this, so please feel free to contact Steve with your feedback via the contact form here or on the DNS Europe website.

From: Kevin Kelly — The Technium:

The new rules for the new economy can be summarized as:

Where ever attention flows, money will follow.

Almost anything else except attention can be manufactured as a commodity. Luxury goods are only luxuries temporarily. They quickly are counterfeited and commodified. Premium brands are only premium because they garner a surplus of attention.

Maintain an incoming flow of attention and money will follow.

That is really all you need to know. Thankfully there are a zillion ways to garner and maintain attention.

MORE

Originally posted at the Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club

There has been plenty of talk over the last few years about the need to attract talented Serbs from the Diaspora back to Serbia to lead the next generation of Serbian businesses with their unique blend of Western know-how and understanding of Serbian culture.

I have recently come across not one but two perfect examples of run-away success stories involving returnee Serbs building world-class businesses right here in Serbia.  Here they are…

The Box Group

The first business I want to introduce you to The Box Group, an advertising, marketing, branding and PR  start-up launched by Predrag Bozovic, one of Serbia best entrepreneurs,  who is based between the UK and Belgrade.

Predrag Bozovic, CEO, The Box Group

The Box Group has taken the Belgrade business scene by storm.

Finally a media company that offers fully transparent standardised pricing, meets its fixed deadlines, offers a world class end-to-end product and does it all in weeks not months.

Thanks to The Box Group highly professional marketing is now affordable to local SMEs. Box Group clients know exactly what they are paying for, and they can add or subtract standardised product components to suite their requirements or budget.

One of the best things about the the Box Group is their flexibility. They can and do deliver complete “boxed” solutions  for a fixed all-in price (and guaranteed delivery dates) or they can just cover areas where you need external help (planning, web design, advertisement production, copy-writing, market research, targeted campaigns etc), so you only pay for the components you need.

The Box Group have produced entire campaigns for clients in two weeks thanks to their aggressive deadlines policy and perfectly honed requirements capture and production processes.

They are now attracting foreign clients who are keen to benefit from Western levels of quality assurance and respect for deadlines, but at a bargain outsourced price.

These guys are definitely one to watch.

http://boxgroup.net

Notos Clean Energy

It was during a meeting with The Box Group that I came across one of their clients, Notos Clean Energy, the second highly impressive Serbian company in this story.

Notos Clean Energy is a dream come true for Deputy Prime Minister Djelic and his Sustainable Economic Development team.

Here we have a Serbian & Canadian partnership, run by returnee Serbs who are attracting millions of Euros of investment in clean energy and sustainable economic development.

This is exactly the direction Serbian industry needs to take: green, sustainable, and energy efficient, with the agricultural sector focusing on high value organic produce.  The Box Group represents the other winning strategy, that of establishing Serbia as an outsourcing destination where Western minded owners and managers can provide inexpensive but  high quality services to Western companies  and consumers.

Its not just services and agriculture where the opportunities lie, Serbia’s comparatively inexpensive energy, superb talent pool and booming technology sector  is attracting the attention of infrastructure providers, Data Centre builders and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) experts as one of the key global investment zones of the next decade.

I wish both Notos and The Box Group the very best of luck, but from what I have seen, they will not need it.

They show that the returnee model works beautifully. Its time to take this message to the Diaspora.

http://www.notoscleanenergy.com/en/