Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing

by Anderson, Chris

• ISBN13: 9781401310325
• ISBN10: 140131032X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-20
• Publisher: Ingram Book Co

Summary

The online economy offers challenges to traditional businesses as well as incredible opportunities. Chris Anderson makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can succeed best by giving away more than they charge for. Known as "Freemium," this combination of free and paid is emerging as one of the most powerful digital business models. In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how it can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike. In the twenty-first century, Free is more than just a promotional gimmick: It's a business strategy that is essential to a company's successful future. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Chris Anderson is the author of the international best-seller The Long Tail. He is the editor in chief of Wired magazine and was a U.S. business editor at The Economist. He began his career at the two premier science journals Science and Nature. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from George Washington University and studied Quantum Mechanics and Science Journalism at the University of California.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition	p. xi
Prologue	p. 1
The Birth of Free	p. 7
What Is Free?
Free 101	p. 17
A Short Course on a Most Misunderstood Word
The History of Free	p. 34
Zero, Lunch, and the Enemies of Capitalism
The Psychology of Free	p. 55
It Feels Good. Too Good?
Digital Free
Too Cheap to Matter	p. 75
The Web's Lesson: When Something Halves in Price Each Year, Zero Is Inevitable
"Information Wants to be Free"	p. 94
The History of a Phrase That Defined the Digital Age
Competing with Free	p. 101
Microsoft Learned How to Do It Over Decades, but Yahoo Had Just Months
De-Monetization	p. 119
Google and the Birth of a Twenty-First-Century Economic Model
The New Media Models	p. 135
Free Media Is Nothing New. What Is New Is the Expansion of That Model to Everything Else Online.
How Big is the Free Economy?	p. 162
There's More to It than Just Dollars and Cents
Freeconomics and the Free World
Econ 000	p. 171
How a Century-old Joke Became the Law of Digital Economics
Nonmonetary Economies	p. 180
Where Money Doesn't Rule, What Does?
Waste is (Sometimes) Good	p. 190
The Best Way to Exploit Abundance Is to Relinquish Control
Free World	p. 199
China and Brazil Are the Frontiers of Free
What Can We Learn from Them?
Imagining Abundance	p. 208
Thought Experiments in "Post-Scarcity" Societies, from Science Fiction to Religion
"You Get What You Pay For"	p. 215
And Other Doubts About Free
Coda	p. 237
Free in a Time of Economic Crisis
Free Rules	p. 241
The Ten Principles of Abundance Thinking
Freemium Tactics	p. 245
Fifty Business Models Built on Free	p. 251
Notes	p. 255
Acknowledgments	p. 263
Index	p. 269
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.