During that chat, a lot of ideas were covered, and Raph briefly touched on how he thought offer-based marketing was a big new trend at GDC. Here’s the chat log, edited for relevance:

SL: Kim Chihuly: so fremium and microtransactions – any other new busines model stuff from GDC?
Raph: Yes! offer-based marketing
Raph: Huge new trend
gracemcdunnough: Raph, explain?
Raph: Offer-based marketing: where users are offered discounts/coupons/special access to partner programs, and referral revenue is paid to the oeprator
Raph: Reports from companies exploring this is that it has resulted in a 30% or so increase in their revenues
WorldMaker: Isn’t offer-based marketing entirely too 1990s Web 1.0?
SL: Dave Zeeman: Sounds like those “Get a free XBox 360!” ads.
SL: Adri Saarinen: Oh man, Offerpal was all over GDC
SL: Dave Zeeman: only in reverse
gracemcdunnough: Bounties, those were popular in the early web days

Full log here (Requires Metaplace beta account)

So I tossed “Research Offer-based Marketing” into my notebook, and forgot about it for a few days. Upon reading it again, I hit up good ol’ Google for some info. Probably the best article I came across was this one at VentureBeat. Good stuff.

How does this apply to my own interests, Listy in particular? Well, I’m always interested in marketing ideas – that’s just how I am. I’m particularly interested in marketing that doesn’t inconvenience the audience. No annoyance, etc. Given that, this seemed like a pretty good idea – I get revenue, user gets two somethings instead of one.

Now throw in virtual currency. What if the premium services on your web app cost a specific amount per month in virtual cash, and you can pick and choose the services you want (rather than free/premium boolean style)? Each service costs a little bit, user’s pages can have tip jars (tie it into twitter, even: @listybot: tip @tkstudios 100), users can buy points, or get ‘em via free offers.

It’s a pretty fun concept. A bit more complex than just having paid accounts, but definitely much cooler, and more importantly, much more fun. And fun’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? I mean, besides functionality and usefulness and a hundred other factors…