Besides studying Meta Products from a techical point of view, it might also be illuminating to have a look at the business side and see what opportunities Meta Products offer in terms of business models.

As explained earlier, Meta Products consist of both a physical part and a web part. Together they make up the total product experience. Therefore we can learn from the applied business models of both 20th century consumer products and 21st century web services.

First, let’s state the most common business models around physical products:

1. Selling the actual atoms
For most products, consumers simply pay for the atoms themselves. They pay for the materials, the production and assembly processes, the distribution, and the extra margins put above production prices depending on the kind of brand they’re buying from.

2. Selling products on loan
In some cases, businesses are selling products on basis of loans. Especially in case of large purchases, like buying a car, businesses tend to offer loans to consumers. In this way consumers are given the opportunity to pay back their purchase over time, instead of buying at once (of course with a certain amount of interest).

3. Selling subscriptions
Some markets, like the magazine and newspaper market, are mostly subscription based. People can subscribe to a certain amount of items or a timespan in which they can make use of a product.

4. Giving away products for free
Businesses are giving away their products for free more than we might think. In most of these cases advertising is covering the costs to produce and distribute these products. Think of many free magazines where advertisers indirectly pay for all the costs. This is called the 3-party market (producer, advertiser and consumer).

Now, let’s see which business models are often applied for web services:

1. Selling licences
Most software is being sold licence based. Consumers pay for a certain version which they can download after purchase or get delivered on DVD by mail.

2. Selling subscriptions
Like physical products, web services are often sold via subscriptions. Think of your hosting service: you probably pay an annual fee to get your website hosted.

3. Giving away web services for free
There is an extremely large group of web services offering their service completely for free, and this group is increasing everyday. There are several models to keep these businesses alive:
- Advertising: let advertisers pay for access to an audience who in return pay nothing for the service itself.
- Merchandising: offer merchandising around the involved free web service.
- Freemium: offer a free basic version of the web service, and sell a premium one that has more features. Many iPhone apps work this way.
- Donations: give consumers the choice whether they would like to give a donation for the service they use.
- Offer the complete service for sale: launch and grow a web service until it’s big enough to sell to a web mammoth such as Google or Yahoo. In the meantime consumers have been using the service for free. YouTube did it, amongst many others.

Well now, for Meta Products, consisting of both a web and physical part, you can play and mix with the above stated business models. Most likely you will be selling the physical product and giving away the web service. This is because people are used to buying real stuff, while they are expecting web services to be free. Nabaztag, Nike+ and Poken are all examples of selling the atoms and giving away free bits on the web. However, it gets even more interesting when you sell the physical product, give away a basic web service that makes the product work, and then offer a premium web service on top of that, which expands the total product experience.

What’s for sure, is that the web forces businesses to create great new (consumer friendly) business models everyday, and Meta Products can benefit from that!