clipped from: blog.wired.com   

Ziitrend Twice this week I interviewed companies that are launching without attempting to make money. Yesterday, I spoke with Wikinvest, which wants to hold off on monetizing their financial wiki until it builds up significant traffic. Today I spoke with Vancouver-based Ziigo, whose newly community prediction site Ziitrend has a similar philosophy. While I find both sites fun places to click around, a faint buzz rings in the back of my mind: Launch now, make money later? Is the bottom line-focused discipline of post-2001 startups eroding?


Wikinvest sparked enthusiasm among Epicenter readers, and indeed the company's perfectly articulate founders acknowledged they plan to sell advertising on their site, among other unnamed revenue streams. ZiiTrend co-founder Tony Wong also mentioned an ad-supported future, albeit without a time frame.