rafer:

It’s easy to kick someone when they are having trouble I guess. Ning announced a significant layoff and the critics pounced.

I guess I wasn’t surprised at this point. But the thing that surprised me was the negativity about freemium.

Just because some companies struggle with freemium doesn’t…

Rafer sez:
Agreed. I’ve started to refer to it as the Conversion Bubble.

I disagree. The negativity isn’t aimed at the freemium model, it’s at the absence of legitimate plan for earning profits (note that 37signals does in fact have a free versions of their applications).

As for the conversion bubble - now that’s a bubble I would welcome open armed! It’s more likely to be the opposite, however. The return to business sense is the consequence of a deflating bubble and reality rushing in. You can only evade reality for so long, especially when every fool with a php book wants to be part of the action.

Isn’t it a little ridiculous that business-mindedness would be considered a bubble? Crazy world we live in.