SlideShare, one of the best places on the Web to host your content online and embed it downstream, introduced custom branded microsites this morning, aimed to provide businesses with branded channels that are measurable, showcasing content from presentations, white papers and Web seminars. Combined with the company's AdShare and LeadShare products for targeted promotion and lead capture, and you can see SlideShare setting the stage for serious demand generation from marketers.

New branded channels on SlideShare now can feature customized headers and summaries, presented with the host's logos and appearance, rather than the generic SlideShare interface. You can see this in place on my custom louisgray.com SlideShare channel, or those from other early practitioners, such as ReadWriteWeb or Frost & Sullivan.


A directory of branded channels can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/channels.

Yesterday, Dave McClure got the tech blogosphere talking, once again, about the debate between free products, largely built on advertising, and subscription models with consistent recurring revenues. His post, summed up as "Subscriptions are the New Black" frustratingly said an entire decade of Web focus has been on inefficient revenue models, and that the successful exits for "free" services were dwarfed by the deaths and ugliness from many more. While I believe that there are certain parts of the Web that should come for free, without a paywall, I have been happily paying premium dollars for many different services, and would hope that there are many more like me, willing to reward services and developers with real money for a positive experience.

Despite the rage and gnashing of teeth over the New York Times' recent move to put more content for subscribers only, and other news showing that Newsday's revenue from subscribers was practically invisible, for-pay content has thrived online, if the content is differentiated and valuable. For years, I have happily paid for a premium subscription to ESPN.com to get "insider only" access to premium columns and features. For almost a decade, I have paid, on an annual basis, for online access to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, in parallel, I am, of course, paying for content from companies like Netflix, TiVo and Sirius Radio, as well as the many, many purchases I make from Apple through the iTunes store, for both music and video.

I am more than happy to pay for quality at a good price. As I have mentioned many different times on this blog, I am not a fan of untargeted advertising, either as a consumer or as an advisor to companies looking to make revenue dollars. I believe that if you can find a premium version of a product that delivers value, and can be promised a professional experience, then you should pay. I did not blink at the $2.99 price for Tweetie 2 on the iPhone, despite free alternatives, and I have paid for my MobileMe account, forking over $99 a year to Apple, for several years, for the privilege of keeping my Mac.com e-mail address, and access to their other online products.

As my own Blippy.com activity will show you, I pay about $10 a month to have my blog content converted to e-mail distribution and sent out through Feedblitz. I have paid for TypePad access. I even recently paid money to try out RowFeeder, and paid for premium versions of TwitterCounter and UnTweeps, to test out and use those Twitter-related ecosystem products. Every year, I pay TurboTax online to send my taxes to Uncle Sam and the State of California.

I pay because I receive value. Value is why Ecademy has members paying $40 a month for premium membership in its social business network, why SmugMug's members are happy with their annual costs and why many users are paying SocialToo for daily e-mail updates or other premium features. I've paid for higher bit rates on streaming radio stations online. I've paid Slashdot money in the past to remove advertising. I have paid to make donations to sites that might otherwise have gone out of business.

Major sticking points with many parts of the Web in terms of monetization come from differentiation, or the lack thereof. I have paid for many of these services because they offer something that nobody else does. If free alternatives exist, then paying for a full subscription is harder to command. It becomes a challenge to change something to a paid model if it has once been free, and you could rightly anticipate massive screaming if popular sites that are free today, including most social media sites, were to start charging for access we get free today. But if the reason sites are just posting up simple ads in lieu of subscriptions is due to the belief I wouldn't pay, they are wrong. I believe many others like me want to get the opportunity to find high quality products, and they wouldn't shy away from paying a fair price.

Disclosures: I am an advisor to SocialToo and have done premium work with Ecademy.

The Apple iPad may have been characterized as simply a larger iPod Touch, but at its core was something unique for Apple's product line, the first product from Cupertino to debut with its A4 chip, derived from the company's much-discussed 2008 P.A. Semi acquisition. After years of trying to work with partners that fit, from Motorola to IBM and finally to Intel, Apple, now a $50 billion company, has set off on a path to create its own silicon, starting with this product, and according to a valley industry insider I talked with over the weekend, the company's fast-growing team is not going unnoticed in the chip design community.

As you can see, among the many job postings on Apple's Web site are descriptions for roles including "Senior Chip Design Engineer" and "Sr. ASIC Design Engineer". The first is for the Mobile Silicon group, and the second is described more generically for the design and development of ASICs for Apple products.

As was characterized to me in the discussion, the team has grown significantly since the P.A. Semi acquisition nearly two years ago, and many talented engineers who found themselves on the short end of company reductions or closures through the recent recession are finding their way to Cupertino, with only one other company yielding a significant alternative.

"There are two giant sucking sounds in the Valley chip design space right now," they said. "Apple is one of them, and NVIDIA is the other."

Given Apple's interesting position, why would potential applicants turn away from Cupertino and instead to NVIDIA or other alternatives? As I heard it described, at companies like NVIDIA, chip design is celebrated, and that's the company's focus. At Apple, the chip design, like the A4, is made transparent, with the real focus on user experience instead. As much as we know about the A4, we also have a lot of questions. All Apple wants us to know is that it's fast. It sounds like the chip design team is also growing fast, and we should no doubt see more machines, beyond the iPad that will come with "Apple Inside" as the roadmap progresses.

See Also: NY Times: A Little Chip Designed by Apple Itself

Twitter continues to expand its corporate ranks, and it's become something of a regularity that the company can be seen welcoming a small handful of people virtually every Monday thus far in the new year. This week's hires include Mark Otto, a user experience designer and Dan Webb, the developer behind Twaud.io, billed as "TwitPic for Audio". The pair were added to Twitter's team list this morning, bringing the total accounts associated with the company to 158, which may also include contractors.

Mark Otto (http://www.markdotto.com/) is part of the expanding user interface team at Twitter, having recently worked at ZURB, an interaction design firm based in Campbell, by San Jose. Among the listed clients of ZURB where Mark contributed effort were TinyPic, the free image hosting service, and CC: Betty, the e-mail organizer.


Dan Webb (http://www.danwebb.net/) describes himself as a Web developer from London interested in DOM scripting and Ruby on Rails. He is also the creator of Twaud.io, a lightly used service aimed to bring audio to Twitter via MP3, through direct uploads or simple recording. (See also: @twaudio)

Twitter's Web and mobile interfaces have been relatively spartan to date, when contrasted with more media-rich clients, including Brizzly and Twazzup, which have moved to display video and images in line. I wouldn't make the leap that Webb's hire indicates Twitter would soon start supporting in-line play of audio, but his experience certainly can't hurt.