This isn’t news of course. The rise of consumer service companies throughout the 2.0 era has been a story of companies focussing on delivering value to users without aggressively pushing advertising or subscription plans (Facebook, Last.FM, Flickr, Youtube, Twitter, etc, etc). The most common complaint with this model is that it forgets the notion of a business plan. But I’m not sure that’s the case, especially in an era where so much value can be had for free, and where the ability to gain attention and dollars from consumers increasingly relies building trusted relationships with them. MediaFuturist had some good things say about this in a recent post.

How do you earn trust? Over-deliver on value … companies that are obviously holding back the utility of their free services just don’t get traction. Companies that constantly surprise with positive experiences are rewarded in the long term. Being aggressive with ‘business plans’ at the early stages of many consumer markets can be penny wise and pound foolish. This sounds obvious, but one of the most fascinating lessons from the rise of Google is not just that endless cool stuff gets attention … its that it gains trust. And that trust, obtained by over-delivering value without (seemingly, to the user) asking for much in return, translated into a deep reservoir of loyalty that ultimately became wildly profitable. And ask anyone that has competed with Google in the consumer services market—anything Google does is assumed to be better—and also more trustworthy. That’s not just an innovation victory—it’s a trust victory.

Oh, and while you’re busy over-delivering on value over the long term, also grab a third party endorsement. ;0) It always helps.