Economics of Giving It Away

8 | Posted In Marketing by David

free_sign I wanted to make a quick post this morning to point my readers toward a great piece in the Wall Street Journal. It is written by Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail) and it is entitled The Economics of Giving It Away.

He talks about making money in this economic climate.

See, obviously, in a down economy, people are looking for value. And the word “free” will certainly grab attention. These days, more and more online companies are offering services for free. Twitter is free. Google is free. But, even on a smaller scale, the content on this blog is free. 95% of the content on my tech site PCMech is free.

But, it isn’t enough. See, people want and now expect freebies, but Anderson points out that it can be used as a marketing tactic and then you work on getting enough people into a premium paid option to pay for it. And when we’re talking about digital goods on the Internet, the cost of giving it away is next to nothing.

This article makes the case for what I have called the Future of Blogging Income. Bloggers should pay attention to what Chris Anderson says in this article.

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  • http://simoncrabb.com simoncrabb

    Great article, thanks for posting it up.

    I see Chris Anderson has a new book coming out, ‘Free’, which I guess will be similar to ‘The Long Tail’, a whole book for a concept that can be explained in a pararagraph?

    Indeed, that article probably covers most of it!

  • http://www.rcLazy.com Simon

    Great article, thanks for posting it up.

    I see Chris Anderson has a new book coming out, ‘Free’, which I guess will be similar to ‘The Long Tail’, a whole book for a concept that can be explained in a pararagraph?

    Indeed, that article probably covers most of it!

  • Molly

    I agree with Simon! You’ve already said it all. Anything more is flotsam.
    Molly

  • Molly

    I agree with Simon! You’ve already said it all. Anything more is flotsam.
    Molly

  • http://www.blogsnd.com/ Dalirin

    It makes sense because you have to advertise what your product is about. Nobody knows your product. why should they pay for something they don’t know about. They should should throw their money in the trash instead of giving it to you.

  • http://www.blogsnd.com Dalirin

    It makes sense because you have to advertise what your product is about. Nobody knows your product. why should they pay for something they don’t know about. They should should throw their money in the trash instead of giving it to you.

  • http://www.mattybyloos.com/ Matty Byloos

    Great tip. I’ve read a bunch about the long tail issue, based on that book, and am looking forward to reading this article now. Thanks!

  • http://www.mattybyloos.com Matty Byloos

    Great tip. I’ve read a bunch about the long tail issue, based on that book, and am looking forward to reading this article now. Thanks!