Chris Anderson - Free: The Future of a Radical Price
On my way to Germany last week I finished reading Chris Andersons book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The expectation from the Long Tail have been sky high, and though not as good, or revolutionary as the Long Tail, its still a must read. Some part very rather slow to get through while some chapters I found felt more valued in my opinion. What I like about is how Chris don’t claim that everything should be free, rather how the concept of Free can be utilised to build business from scratch or even for big companies to stay competitive. Even some example when the big boys have to adapt to the changing digital market, thanks to the spread use of free software and services on the web. How Google is one of the biggest forces pushing and expanding free.
I really like the part were he write about combining Free and Paid, with a lot of great examples.To use Free to build a potential customer base, and then charge for a premium service for those who want more advanced features or more storage.
Maybe what I missed was a discussion of which companies that can benefit from Free, and those who don’t. I think it would be great to try to criticise his theories to strengthen them.
It is great to see that Chris take this concept into reality by giving his book away for Free in either Audio book and eBook. This isn’t new, to give away as many books as possible to get interest up and build his own brand. He doesn’t make his money on book sales, but rather on people booking him to come and speak and going into details about his theories. The same way music artist start to give away their music, broaden the fan base who then will pay for other things such as concert and merchandise.
By reading this book, after many fictional books recently, it got my business mind and thoughts start working again. It really inspired me, which is a good thing!
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