Category: Technology
Chris Anderson visits Google to present his book “Free” This event took place on July 9, 2009, as part of the Authors@Google series. My book review of Free.
From the Google Author Series:
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.
I found Chris’ idea really is not so radical given today’s economy. It will benefit those companies smart enough to recognize the innovative opportunity to grow their customer base.
Tags: Chris Anderson, Free: The future of a Radical Price, marketing, Google Author, copyright, internet, economy, innovation, ideas, business, radical, reading, trends
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Latest read: Switch
Dan and Chip Heath made a splash with their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (my 2007 review) and now the Heath brothers are up to it again.
Their follow up book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard is expected in early 2010.
If Switch is anything like Made to Stick, we’ll have our hands full of more great lessons about change.
BMW‘s upcoming 5 Series GT photographed against Santiago Calatrava’s work in Milwaukee….but you have to look very close to figure it out.
To no surprise globalization is bringing the world closer together and thereby making commerce “smaller” and faster as global financial markets increase the efficiency of established information systems. Recent growth of internet penetration has changed dramatically. Today China has more internet users than America has citizens.
Consider this form IF you can image everyone you know connected, literally everyone in the USA — then you would see China has surpassed our population. With almost 75% of Americans connected implications are huge since China has only 20% of its population connected. I blogged about this impact with YouTube in March.
Original graphic
Tags: Internet Users, China, population, internet growth, internet, economy, trends