To Be or Not To Be Advertising

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As for the debate about subscription versus ad supported business models, I think the data is coming in pretty conclusively that the free model is where the big money will be made. I posted the results of a survey several weeks ago on this topic that said 68% of the population prefer free and ad supported. Yesterday, the results of another survey were published, this time by the Points North Group and Horowitz Associates. This time 62% prefer free versus 17% who want paid with no ads. 21% are undecided which means they haven’t been asked to pay yet and hit the back button. Either way, the digital medium has worked best with a free ad-supported model (see Google’s earnings last night $2bn in revenue in Q4 and cash flow of almost $500 million all from ads on free web content).