Chris Anderson’s analysis about the economy of free (or “freeconomics”) is about the most fascinating thing I’ve read in a long time. Everything on the web is trending toward free — how are companies turning free into a business model? Anderson explores various reasons for the zero cost trends and lists several strategies companies are using to turn free into a profit.

I don’t know if it was my long bike ride along a river or my immersion in the writing phase of a documentation project, but this week I’ve been pondering Mike Hughes’ assertion that help should be a “mile wide and thirty seconds deep.” I first heard Mike mention this help landscape metaphor in a podcast several months back. Mike also wrote an article called … more »

In “FREE: The Economics of Abundance and the Price of Zero,” Wired magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson talks about the gift economy and how you can make products free without losing your financial return. One idea that caught my attention was to give your products away for bloggers to review. With one of his previous books (The Long Tail, I believe), Chris says he sent out … more »