{"id":2892,"date":"2011-01-09T14:53:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T22:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/?p=2892"},"modified":"2011-01-09T14:53:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T22:53:31","slug":"free-how-todays-smartest-businesses-profit-by-giving-something-for-nothing-chris-anderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/2011\/01\/09\/free-how-todays-smartest-businesses-profit-by-giving-something-for-nothing-chris-anderson\/","title":{"rendered":"Free. How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing. Chris Anderson."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Free. How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing. Chris Anderson<\/a>. 2010. ISBN 9781401310325.\u00a0 I have had this book awhile and, really kick myself for not reading it sooner.\u00a0 It is outstanding.\u00a0 Anderson is able to debunk all the chestnuts out there around free as well as spend the time to give you some history lessons on free.\u00a0 He also experimented with his own ideas on how to place the product out there for free using various methods he put forward.\u00a0 Very insightful stuff . I especially appreciated his 10 Rules of Free on pp 241 and the review of the range of conversion rates one can expect from freemium on pp 247.\u00a0 The key insight for me is his comment ( compressed and paraphrased by me)\u00a0 that:<\/p>\n

Price will fall to the marginal cost (in the digital bits case,\u00a0 free) unless the provider has a monopoly and\/or enjoys the network effect<\/a> such as Microsoft (Office docs) and Facebook.\u00a0 This supports a winner takes all effect, driving competitors to\u00a0 very low numbers.\u00a0\u00a0 Facebook can not charge for new members because it has value in the network = linking new people all the time. So they will generate revenue from scale – losing with 99 % of the users and making it from a small % of ad revenue.\u00a0 ( or perhaps – selling stock!) <\/em><\/p>\n

I see that\u00a0 Guy Kawasaki<\/a> and Tim Ferris<\/a> both used ideas from Anderson in their recent promotions.\u00a0 Guy generated more “reputation” currency by offering free downloads of the Macintosh Way<\/a> to people who “liked” his new book facebook page.\u00a0 Tim Ferris drove buys of the new 4 Hour Body , by offering a pdf of the 4 Hour Workweek to those who bought the new book.\u00a0 Tim drove his book to the top of Amazon very quickly = increased sales and reputation.<\/p>\n

This is the best treatment of free and freemium out there. If you buy this very readible book, read and digest it. It contains numerous money making ideas. Do not treat it lightly! You can get the audiobook still free at Chris’ website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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