Social networking monetization has a long way to go. They are applying the same basic advertising methods that have been appliied to content sites and search engines.

The reality is that advertisers aren't very interested in hyper targeting based on profiles, preferences, and social graphs. They want scale and reach of the big sites.

Loyalty cards are a whole different thing. But even here, with all the data they have on your purchases, they don't do much with it. Offering coupons for similar products isn't very innovative...and hasn't worked real well.

I don't see the connection between loyalty cards and Facebook, but something could emerge. I think Facebook's Beacon will re-emerge in some new form to use the purchases and preferences of your friends list to help make recommendations to you.

Yes, Nintendo was eclipsed by Xbox. Microsoft had no leverage, no advantage, no starting point at all in the game world. Xbox won the market share battle because it is a better product.

BTW, Xbox is profitable...not a cost sink.

The problem is scale. Advertisers don't want to make deals with 100's of small web sites, they want to make one or two buys for online, one or two for print, and one for TV. Actually, it is the ad agencies that actually place teh buys in most cases, but they don't want to bothered either. They need massive reach and scale in brand name media channels.

I have no doubt that behavioral targeting works, and delivers a very relevent audience, but the SIZE of the audience is too small to attract the big advertisers for display ads. CPC text ads are a completely different animal.

Thanks, Edwin. I haven't tried Feedly...but I will.

Bing is about finding the information you want to help you make decisions. It is beyond search. Try it next week...with an open mind.

Sorry Josh, I don't know of any access codes. Launch is Wednesday June 3rd.

The erosion of classified advertising has been going on for about 5 years if you look at the newspaper numbers. The recession has been going for a little over 2 years. The Internet (browser) has been around for about 15 years. These and other factors came together to form a perfect storm. You can argue that they should have seen it coming, but the recession and advertising decline is what really brought it to crisis level.

First, its not like it is really a conscious decision to trade print ad dollars for online revenues. Advertisers make those decisions...not newspapers. And, in many cases it is not an either/or decision.

Second, yes, I think they can make it up in volume online because the online readers come from a much larger geographic audience. And, I don't believe the majority of online readers are canceling their print subscriptions to read online.. Some are...but I don't think it is the majority.

Most of the revenue loss at newspapers has come from advertising declines, not subscription revenue. So, newspapers should really be focusing their attention on how to meet the needs of advertisers in new creative ways, both in print and online.

BTW, I will be moderating a panel on the future of newspapers at the NextMedia Conference in Banff on June 5 through June 9.

Vincent, Yes, social networks have a long way to go in terms of monetizing. There will be a few very large (general) social networks that will do very well, and most of the others will fail to monetize. Then there will be some specialized social networks focused on a vertical market or niche that will monetize well. The rest will not do well.

SaaS is a delivery mechanism, not a business model. Services delivered as SaaS (Software as a Service) can use several business models; monthly subscription, ad supported, Freemium up sell, or bundled with other products/services.

Management tools for cloud computing applications do not necessarily need to be delivered as SaaS, or sold by subscription. Enterprise customers will pay license fees for management tools...and even some applications.

Freemium makes sense for applications or services that fit 80% of the customer needs without customization or integration.

Whenever customization or integration with other applications is required that means consulting/engineering expense that must be paid for up front.

So, Cloud Computing is no different than any other platform. There will lots of different business models depending on the product/service.

Andrew, The key is to have a local service that works profitably on a local level, and can be scaled on a national level. If it works on the local level, why can't it be re-implemented for every community on a national level?

Yes, VCs want to invest in companies that are capital efficient and use technology to scale up. That is how you get fast growth, big profit margins, and 10X exits. That is their investment model.

Local services that require lots of people to implement, or lots of customer service to support, will not be attractive to VC investors.