Print technology is nice. Biz models that earn money in a free-to-the user economy change the world. Go Print!

In this morning's twitter stream I found a couple of things that highlight some emerging business models for Print.

edited 8:37 am.
Given that my focus is using print in education, the most interesting(2me) are;

"Texas Tribune: Everything . . can be republished on line or in print: .http://ilnk.me/631 <>

This could turn out to be the game changer for newspapers and drive the use of newspapers to replace HS textbooks. Texas Tribune was launched this morning. It's a venture capitalist non profit journalism site with top editorial talent. It is worth the click to see the business model.

From the print centric point of view the point is that the revenue stream is not selling access to content. It's about events and others. Given the November 16 launch in Berlin of Niui, all the pieces are in place for another proof of concept project. The natural is Oce, but Infoprint or HP may turn out to be first movers.

For versioned and personalized paper back books

"@Bookboon: free online textbooks for students in PDF financed by a few in-book ads." http://ilnk.me/623 < @hotprints does the print piece >

@hotprints got onto my radar a while ago. Posted Oct 14. They offer two levels of service for photo books printed directly from social networks. From their twitter stream it seems that there have been some bumps in the road integrating with Facebook, but I'm betting that will be fixed sooner, rather than later.

The point is that users can get a book for free with advertising, or pay for a book without advertising. Bookboon doesn't yet have a print offering, but it's just a matter of time before one of the many open source models adopt the free with advertisng, pay for no advertising model.

The 10,000 gorillas are Google and Amazon. Posted July 25.

kindlenews News: Amazon Plans For E-Book Advertising (AMZN) - The Business Insider http://su.pr/8oPHSK

One plausible model for monetizing book content in an economy of "free to the user" is becoming clear.

Read the digital copy for free or close to free. Free print books with advertising. Pay for books with no advertising.

As the model is proven, the opportunities for print on demand books and newspapers reach the tipping point.