Chinwag Live: Freeconomics

Event Info

Mon 30 Mar, 2009 from 5:00pm - 7:30pm
Slug & Lettuce (downstairs)
80-82 Wardour St
London, W1F 0TG, UK (Map)
Cost: £25+VAT early-bird (limited numbers), £50+VAT standard

Description

supported by:
Sponsored by UKTI
Sun Startup Essentials

'Free' rules supreme in the online world, but is Free sustainable? Must companies now monetise or die, and can we challenge the habits of Generation Free?

Success at Free has come with cost. For storage dependant sites such as flickr, YouTube, Facebook, ad subsidy cannot meet the costs of scaling. But what issues do the other models bring? Why for example do Freemium models (free 'basic' and paid 'pro') work for some and not for others (think flickr vs Facebook)? Will we see a return of micropayments?

Join us as we ask - Is there a future to Free, and where? Are there new opportunities to monetise in the land of Free or in fact does Free no longer make sense?

'Free' it seems has become the de facto business model for the internet - Free content, Free services, Free entertainment. But is the low growth rate of digital ad spend and falling ad prices restraining the growth of Free? Will Free falter, or can new Freeconomic models truly deliver?

Where Are The Pictures?

Photographic evidence from the event, if you've got photos you'd like to add, let us know.

www.flickr.com

Speakers

Azeem AzharAzeem Azhar - Managing Partner, Open Capital Partners
Azeem Azhar is setting up a new company delivering financial and economic analysis. He has been mucking around with the internet for 18 years putting his first products online using gopher in 1993. He has worked as a journalist covering technology at The Guardian and The Economist, in strategy and innovation roles at the BBC and Reuters. He has actively invested in and coached technology startups including Powerset, TrueKnowledge and Daylife.

Bruce DaisleyBruce Daisley - Industry Leader, YouTube
Bruce Daisley started his working career in 1993 at Media Sales & Marketing - part of Capital Radio. Shortly later he formed part of the start-up team of Emap On Air, with the ambition to change the way that radio was sold. His subsequent Emap career has been focussed on periods in radio - and five years building internet sales teams. His teams won Media Week Sales Team of the Year in 2005, and Campaign Sales Team of the Year in 2005 and 2006. He moved across to join Google UK as Agency Leader in September 2008.

Nic BrisbourneNic Brisbourne - Partner, DFJ Esprit
Nic has been in venture capital since 2000. In that time he has worked in London, Europe and Silicon Valley. His main areas of focus have been software and media. Prior to DFJ Esprit he was with Reuters Venture Capital. Nic's investment experience includes buy.at (sold to AOL for $125m) and UltraDNS (acquired by Neustar - NYSE NSR). He currently manages DFJ Esprit's investments in Zeus, WAYN and Tribold. Prior to joining Reuters Nic worked for Operis, a software and services start-up, and Cap Gemini. Nic also authors a blog commenting on the European technology and venture capital markets.

Victor KeeganVictor Keegan - Technology Columnist, Guardian
Victor Keegan is a journalist and author focusing on economics and technology issues. He has spent most of his working life at The Guardian as reporter, financial correspondent, deputy financial editor, economics editor, business editor, duty editor, Chief Leader Writer, Assistant Editor and Online Editor. With his colleague, he introduced the Guardian's first blogs (Technology and Games) and in 2001 he started the first-ever text message poetry competition for the Guardian. He writes a weekly column on the internet and personal technology and contributes to Guardian Unlimited's web site and "Comment is Free" blog. He is also curator of the SLart Gallery in Second Life.

Charlie Blake ThomasCharlie Blake Thomas - Commercial Director, Huddle
Charlie joined Huddle in 2007 to build the sales and partnering function. Huddle now counts some of the world’s largest companies and governments as clients as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses around the world. The company has recently signed partnership deals with Linkedin and the world’s largest provider of teleconferencing, InterCall. Prior to joining Huddle, Charlie spent time working for Mars as well as founding his own web company in 1999 which he went on to sell with his two co-founders. His particular passion is how to build a great sales function and commercialise a business with a free web offering, something the team at Huddle have done extremely successfully.

Alan Patrick Alan Patrick - Consultant, Broadsight
Alan Patrick is a co-founder of Broadsight, a specialist digital multi-media consultancy and system design house. He has worked with telecoms and media companies such as the BBC, British Telecom, Dolby, Alcatel Lucent, AOL Time Warner, Vodafone, Virgin media and UPC. He has worked in the US, Europe, South Africa and the Far East. Recent multi-media projects have been in the areas of Online Advertising, Cloud Ecosystems, Online Video and Web TV/IPTV, Real Time Search and Transaction Messaging and Next Generation Mobile Internet services.

Sponsored by:

UK Trade & Investment Sun Startup Essentials

 

Event produced by Julia Eilon.


Podcast

iTunesRSS

We do our best to put microphones under the noses of our panelists, for your aural pleasure. The podcasts are available in iTunes flavour, old school RSS listen using the player below or download.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Map

Javascript is required to view this map.

Organiser

Email / +44 (0)20 7183 2923