If you haven’t noticed, the “new” business model is to give away things on the Web, and find other ways to make money off of the (hopefully) resulting feeding frenzy. This isn’t a new concept; broadcast television is – or was, before cable and satellite and TiVo – free, with the content being advertiser-supported. Fast forward to today, and you’re reading web sites like this one for free. But it’s still a radical change in business plans for many. For example, many of us up here were recently magazine writers, used to getting a check in exchange for writing a new article, whether anyone read it or placed an ad next to it or not. Now we’re kicking out content for “free” hoping to be compensated through a combination of ad support and page views.
Chris Anderson – Editor in Chief at Wired Magazine since 2001, and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
The Web has become the land of the free. The idea that you can make money by giving something away is no longer radical – free has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Not only is technology giving companies greater flexibility in how broadly they can define their markets, but anything that touches digital networks quickly feels the effect of falling costs.
PARC has made a video of the talk available – for free, of course. Click here to watch “FREE! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.”