Hello all,
I was just reading this article: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/28/klout-raises-1-5-million-to-measure-influence-and-authority-on-twitter/ And got a question, how can a web company like that (klout) that delivers its service for free and its api for free can make money?
Just curious, probably all the money don't come just from investors.
Thanks
They can deliver basic information for free as a teaser.
Some sophisticated analytics will later be sold for money.
Klout can do many things to make money. They could eventually put their API behind a paywall, or charge for a premium version of the API which gives users greater/faster access to more analytics. Just like twitter has a firehose they charge for. They also could just be playing to get bought by an analytics company that would then sell it themselves, or integrate Klout's algorithms into their own product. Someone like Twitter could be a potential buyer themselves if they are too lazy to come up/release to public their own influence algorithm