Recent start up refer.ly aims to do just this. There is a hidden 3 billion dollar revenue stream for affiliate marketing systems. One of which I mentioned, skimlinks, in an earlier post. The most interesting part of this start is the angel which it takes. Instead of focusing on the semiprofessional and professional content provider it focuses on the non professional. Refer.ly aims to monetize the average everyday product referral that everyone does anyway.

The system is rather simple. The referrer shares a link. Any items then bought through those link are counted and the referrer gets a small percentage of up to ten percent, though generally lower. When the user makes at least ten dollars they can, “take it out, donate it charity or share it with friends.” (Though I don’t know that I would do the latter).

One may think there is no way that I can make a living just off of the normal everyday interactions that I make. And one would be correct. But while you may not make a million dollars, it’s free money. And I personally love free money. For right now the company is not even taking a cut, all of the money is going to the users. Techcrunch reports, “Morrill said she doesn’t expect Refer.ly users to make a living off the product. She’s just launching today to see how the market responds.”

Ever wish you had a personal assistant like a high level business person? Well thanks to app mobile tech start up exec, you can. Exec allows customers to hire out personal assistant tasks on a job by job basis. For about $25 dollar an hour you can have one of a pool of personal assistants do a task for you. According to Techcrunch:

“Exec is a service that provides companies or individuals access to part-time executive assistants or someone you need just to run errands for you. The service will get everything you need done for $25 per hour. Currently the service is San Francisco based and is planning to expand to other cities in the US.”

This is a really neat idea. This allows even small time executives, or just over worked housewives a reasonable alternative to hiring a full-time personal assistant, which would probably cost about the same, but would require more hours. the company has done two promotional stunts which Techcrunch has reported on. The first was renting out well known tech entrepreneurs on their per hour basis. The entrepreneurs were available for Skype calls, regular calls, and chats similar to those cheesy meet your favorite star contests. This was done for charity. The more recent stunt they pulled was at giants stadium. Exec’s PAs were standing by to deliver food and beverages to fans with the app, at the normal $25 an hour fee. before you get too excite however Techcrunch advises that you read the fine print, there is apparently a 45 minute minimum charge. this means that on top of what you order you will have to pay at least 18.75.

According to the founder getting people to download the app isn’t the problem, its getting them to use. Well… duh! At the rate of $25 an hour I can’t imagine people are exactly eager to spend that amount of money. I will refer you back to my earlier post of the “goldmine” of mobile apps. I do not see a large market for this, at least not one that would be willing to spend that amount of money, but I think they can secure a small but steady niche. Personally I tend to be all in or all out. If I want a personal assistant, I’ll buy my own. If I can’t afford one, they I won’t have one.

Here’s a stat for you, only about 12% of your Facebook friends see an average post. Facebook is toying with the idea of allowing users, regular users not just business and pages pay to have their stuff featured more prominently on their friend’s newsfeed. For a small fee this would allow you to get your status ranked as more important that other ones. They will not be highlighted in any way they simply will have a more prominent position in the news feed.

There are numerous potential problems for this option. If this option is used too often the new feed will no longer have any relevancy to your interests, only to the pocketbooks of your friends. Should this happen, Facebook runs the risk of destroying the successful community that they have managed to foster. If no one uses it, then no one uses it.

I am not really sure where I stand on the idea. If it worked it would be a huge potential revenue stream. But in order for it to work Facebook would have to walk a very thin line between making money and annoying users. And quite frankly this may not be the time for Facebook to take such a risk. The other social media networks now in the periphery may become more viable options for disgruntled Facebook users. For right now this is only a small, semi secret experiment in New Zealand. If however it goes mainstream I think this would be the most likely outcome:

The importance of mobile apps is a topic that has been very well covered over the past few years.  However just how much of a gold rush is it? According to a recent survey of US consumer conducted by ABI found that 70% of consumer spent nothing or almost nothing on apps. The survey reveals that the app industry is completely dependent on whale spenders, those who spend a large amount of money on apps. The average consumer spends $14 a month on or in apps, but the median is only $7.50. This implies that there are a small number of large spenders who have a “disproportionate effect” on the stats.

All in all this means two things. While the mobile app industry is growing, and growing rapidly, is may not be ready for companies to be so heavily reliant on it. In fact, Techcrunch says the major thing to take away is, “ ABI senior analyst Aapo Markkanen is quoted as saying in a press release accompanying the new data. “Most of the successful app concepts either support, or are supported by, a web component.” I agree with this to a point, innovation is always risky and should be done with reasonable caution; I think there is another take away. People like free stuff. Users are not willing to pay money for things that they can get for free. Why download a solitaire app for $2 when you can get a free one. The free one may not be as good, but it’s free. Developers and content makers should look into creating new methods of revenue generation which will most likely include advertising of some sort.

Here are the survey results:

The Pew internet and American life Project released a recent study about the use of mobile check in apps. The survey suggests that while check in apps are not yet the mainstream they are growing in popularity. Users who answered in the affirmative are up to 15% in feb. 2012 which is up from 12% in May of 2011. Two things to note about the survey: First they mentioned foursquare but not Facebook or other services that allow the same functionality. The survey also did not address how frequently used these services are. The second is a shame because it would be interesting to see how “sticky” these services actually are. The survey also looked at how many respondents were getting location based directions from their phones.