Edublogs has been featured as a case study in new book “The Mind Share Market: The Power of an Alternative Currency” by Nicolas Pujol. Our education blogging service is used as an example of a successful freemium business model. A freemium business is one that offers free services and then charges for add-ons and premium features.
Here’s some of what the book has to say:
James [Farmer] Â found out that websites were evolving into vertical specializations, that is, becoming specialized by industry. His idea was to build a hosting platform that would target an industry with a tailored brand and community. This would be the value added compared to signing up for any general purpose blog or building a standalone website. [...] James found that there was a significant demand for the uses of blogs in education and thus acquired the domain and built a web hosting service dedicated to the education market: edublogs.org. The site grew from ten thousand users in 2006, to one hundred thousand users in 2008, to reach over half a million users in 2010.
It’s great to see Edublogs be held up as a good business model. Hopefully other entrepreneurs will find the information helpful and develop success stories of their own!