The New York Times best-selling author heralds the future of business in Free. In his revolutionary best seller, The Long Tail,
Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche
markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has
never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling
case that, in many instances, businesses can profit more from giving
things away than they can by charging for them.
Far more than a
promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be
essential to a company's survival. The costs associated with the growing
online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in
the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial
economy fallen in price so fast and for so long.
Just think that
in 1961 a single transistor cost $10; now Intel's latest chip has two
billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor
- effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of
scarcity just don't apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive
storage. Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality
that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy.
Anderson
also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different
models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when
your competitors are giving away what you're trying to sell.
In Free,
Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy
and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the
benefit of consumers and businesses alike.
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