For those wonder what freemium is, it is a business model that works by offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features. Common examples of businesses that use the freemium model include wikipedia/wikia and Pandora.

Having a free product means people will use it more. You will have a larger community around your product and can reach out to hundreds of millions of users. On the other hand, a paid product will attract less people but create a more tight nit community around the product as well as your bank balance will soar (IF you have a good product).

My question here is, is it too much to have both? When Pandora announced that they will be restricting users to 40 hours a month of free usage, it too me less than 3 seconds to click the link to subscribe for Pandora ONE. The value I get out of Pandora was well worth the $36 I pay a year. 95% of Pandora’s users will never actually reach the hour limit and are happy with the free version while the few power users such as myself are more than happy to pay for it.

Being the entrepreneur that I am [and also the cut-throat mercenary that I am ], I believe that if there is money be made, make it!

So, here is my proposition for Craigslist: Keep what you have and launch another craigslist Premium. Craigslist Premium will charge $1 per posting. People who use craigslist can continue using the free version that is filled with spam listings and scams. There will be a small percentage of power users though who will recognize the value of the premium service and will migrate over to the premium version and start crunching out $$$ for Craig Newmark. And the best part still? It’s going to cost them practically nothing. Craigslist already has all the things they need for this to be implemented. The premium version will have the same features as the free version and craigslist already charges people for posting in certain sections.

Will the freemium model work for you? It all depends on a factor of how good your product is and how much you are giving away for free. If you give away too much, people won’t pay for the premium version; give away too little and they will not be attracted to try it for free. But one thing is for certain, it has to be good.

Apple Fans can broadly be classified into these categories, some people will fall under a couple:

Apple Heads: These are the people who own everything Apple. You can’t see them without at least 2 Apple products on them at the same time. They talk only Apple. Steve Jobs is god! (He is not guys. That would be Larry Elison)

Apple Heads tend to buy everything Apple and integrate it into their daily lives to an extant that I would classify them as the Borg. My personal thoughts on Apple Head: They are just those people doing what they like best which just happens to be Apple Products. Don’t dislike them. Do get annoyed by them when they start talking about Apple this and Steve Jobs that and will not stop. – I have also been informed that Apple Heads are referred to with an ‘i’ in front of their name as they have turned into Apple products themselves.

Mactards: These guys use Macs or have an iPhone. They will defend Apple on anything and everything. I own this and it is awesome. My personal thoughts on Mactards: They are just Apple Head Lite (as Microsoft would call them

Macaholics: These are the people who have used Macs for a very long period and are happy where they are. They used it for at least 10 years and have not actively used an other OS in that time period. So, basically these have been living in the Mac bubble. They will usually compare their current mac to their old one. Nice people in general. My personal thoughts on Macaholics: You are in my ok book UNTIL you start comparing it with Windows or Linux – you have no idea what you are talking about as by this definition, you have not used them before.

iWannabe: Prepare for a rant, these people strike a nerve. The iWannabe does not own a Mac! The iWannabe does not own a iPhone! They just want one NOW! They have probably never used anything by Apple other than the iPod and even if they have, it is only for a couple hours at best. These people are the once that Apple’s Marketing (AKA Propaganda) division makes their money off. These guys have been convince of the awesomeness of the Mac by the ads, the people talking about it and the every so awesome looks (and sometimes the exclusive price tag). Honestly, I don’t like you cause you are so easy. I am a marketing guy to an extent and seriously the fun in the hunt is in the chase. Give me (and Apple) a challenge people. My personal thoughts on iWannabes: I don’t like you. The Macaholics only fight against something they do not understand. You are fighting FOR something you do not know. Change!!! Try out a Mac from a friend for a while or go to the local library. Figure out why exactly you like it before you say you want one. I will be happy with you telling me its only for the looks if that is the reason you are getting it. —- I just wonder if an violent iWannabe will mug an Apple Head. Now trying to stop thinking of an iWannabe and an Apple Head I know fighting over Apple goodies.

Those are the 4 main categories I would put people into. Some would fall into multiple of these. Some will fall into non. There is always the regular guy and then the super regular. So, the reason behind why I did this, where do I fit in to all this.

I have used Windows most of my life before college. Was not very happy with it at all times, but never had any major issues (except for the time when I went without a computer for 2 years due to an untimely death of an old computer). I will also say that I am not a big gamer, only play games occasionally when I am bored and am not in the state for activities that require 2 or more people. One of my biggest annoyances with Windows that within a year of purchase, your anti-virus hogs up half of your system resources. And before we even continue, all this si based on XP – I disqualify Vista as Windows on the basis that Vista was so bad, that I don’t even want to bring it up – take that all you Vista lowers.

Once in college I started experimenting with Linux. Spent a year and a half with Ubuntu and it was quite simply love at first sight. Great platform. No useless .exe files running. Simple. Low on system requirements. And just about great for anything I needed to do except for design work. And that was something I was wiling to accept and walk to the CoC/Library to get on a machine with Adobe (usually on a Mac).

During the time I was tweaking with Linux, I was also dabbling with Macs mainly for design work and video editing. Me being the person who answers the interview question “Do you know so and so programing language?” with “I will when I come to work on Monday”, I got my act together and my fiddling with Mac impressed me. Everything except for the price tag was at my sweetspot. Note: I do have issues with Mac, which I can ignore they same way I used to ignore the lack of Adobe for Linux. On top of this, some problems that most Windows users have with Macs are not issues for me at all, such as the low game count – not a big gamer here.

Anyways, as I started with my summer jobs, and the money was going to start rolling in, I got myself a Macbook – which is going to become a Macbook Pro in a couple hours. Right now, I am in the position to say that I like OS X. Over a years experience and now even after 2 weeks of running my life from one, it is great. Had a couple minor issues that I don’t care about cause nothing is going to be perfect. (Had myself a fit when I realized that sudo apt-get won’t work anymore)

I have had experiences with all 3 major OSes and I will say – Don’t Like Windows but will use it if I have to – Love Linux and will use it any day unless I want to do design work – OS X Happy with it for now and it seems to have the best functionality of Linux with a beautiful GUI and front-end application collection. And my love for OS X stops at the computers. I don’t like the iPhone!

At the end of it all, what impresses me the most? The hardware! I love the trackpad on the Macbook. Illuminated Keyboard is just WoW (and before you WinHeads get started, I know Dell also offers that). I typed most of this in the dark about to fall asleep without annoying typos. And the main thing keeping me away from getting an iPhone is the lack of a physical keyboard.

So, what am I? I am ambiOSdextrous with a love for Linux, uses a Mac willingly and enjoys the experience and does not want to see a Windows computer in front of him with a passion.

What do you think?

Anyways, on to the reason for this post. As many of you know, I recently purchased a Macbook and from recent tweets, that I will be getting it replaced with the newer and better Pro. Here is the story behind it. I bought myself a Macbook with the student discount a day before they started giving a free iPod Touch with all macs for students.

I tried to get the freebie but the GT bookstore was not working with me and I let it slide. The real deal for me came on Monday while I was keeping an I on #WWDC. Not a Mac Fanboi – Long rant on why I am not will be my next post – but I will say that 4gigs of RAM and the built in battery is what I need being a crazy multitasker who never shuts down the laptop. I will probably use up the 5 year no deaths battery in 2.

Well, this was how my adventure began with customer service sometime late Monday (I had gotten off a little early from work that due to brain not being in optimal coding mode (caffeine) – Blame Kate and the weekend fun for that – Karaoke and 3 movies might have been too much). After preparing my repertoire of curse words to use at customer support ( I have found that incompetent buffoons seems to be the best fixer at Dell) and past Customer Dis-service fiascos. I would say that my first shock was the rep providing me with his phone number and extension in case we get disconnected or I have further issues after the call. A great first impression and the part of my mind that told me to social engineer my way through this convinced me to switch tactics here (I couldn’t play an angry card with such a nice guy).

The second prop to Apple will be that they only transfered me to someone else after finding out that what the problem was and the right person to handle it. This was great cause Dell usually ends up transferring me to approximately 17 people on average (I start swearing at the 5th or 6th). They guy heard me out and gave a deal I could not refuse.

They have already shipped a brand new, top of the line MacBook Pro 13″ with super-nuclear insides (should be hire tomorrow by 3:00). To make up for the whole iPod Touch fiasco, they are giving me a my AppleCare for free. Which is great cause I don’t need a Touch (would have probably given it to Mansi since she wants one and I don’t). And I need to ship the laptop I have back within a month, so it gives me time to copy all the files onto the new one.

So, over all, I am a happy trooper. Apple has been great so far. Only issue I had was the 1-800-MY-APPLE automatic transfer thingy kept transferring me and then disconnecting me. Bug in system probably but the Human Beings were great. Now I can do all my design work and multimedia stuff without going to a lab since I got hold of CS4 Master Collection.

So long folks. Be back very soon. Sometime tomorrow – I have the post half done, feeling the yawns hit me so I am off.