Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Having read and enjoyed The Long Tail I decided to pick up Chris Anderson’s new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price.  I didn’t really pick it up I downloaded it, for free, from Audible.  I was not disappointed.  I thought it  was quite interesting that I could get a book about “free” for free.  That’s putting your money where your mouth is.

It me be that I agree with Mr. Anderson’s thesis that the Internet has me it easy to create pricing models that include free and still make money.  Businesses have been doing this since there was such a thing as businesses.  Free samples readily comes to mind.  In FREE Anderson explores other ways that the Internet is making it easier such as the freemium model where large portions of a service offering are free for everyone, a kind of free sample, and a small number of users pay a premium for some advanced features.  Unlike a typical free sample that tends to have limited utility the freemium model offers good value for free.

I enjoyed the book.  My clearest take away from the book was that we need to start managing abundance and not scarcity.  If it’s online someone is bound to give it away for free.  Like it or not that’s going to happen.  You can fight against the tide or you can go with the flow.  Find a way to make money out of abundance rather than the limits of scarcity.

What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell

A good collection of stories from Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker articles.  You can see the genesis of some of the ideas that would appear a books by Gladwell such as Blink and Outliers.

Tribes, Seth Godin

Godin does it again.  Another insightful book that will get you thinking about how you market.   Tribes are a primal force in all of us.  We long to be part of a tribe whether we know it or not.  Technology has enabled us to be members of many tribes.

Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell

Being born at the right time has something to do with how successful you will become.   That and the fact that you need at least 10,000 hours of practice to get good at anything.

What Would Google Do? Jeff Jarvis

I’ve read a number of books on the rise of Google.  This book was interesting in that it discusses not just the rise of Google but the Google Way.  Much like HP was known for the HP Way, Google will become known, or is known, for how they do business.

Google loves free.  They love to give the user stuff for free.  Free applications, free data, free services, lots of stuff for free.  But why?  Google makes money from ads.  The more ads they display the more money they make.   The more services we consume the more ads Google can show us.

This was a good read.  A must read for anyone in publishing.  Use the Google examples presented in the book to change your business.

Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

Split second judgement aren’t always a bad thing.

Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin

Once again Seth Godin captures a point of view and presents it in a clear way that just about anyone can understand. In fact the points made in this book are articulated in such a way that I will be forwarding the book to some people I know that could benefit from understanding the 14 trends that are changing advertising.

A big part of this new book – Meatball Sundae – discusses the impact the Internet has had on Advertising and Marketing. As Godin’s describes it however it’s not the Internet per se that has changed advertising it’s more about how people use the Internet to communicate.

It is all kind of Web 2.0 but his point is that new communications have to be engaging. It’s about stories, not messages. So what is your story?

Permission Marketing, Seth Godin

If you write any kind of newsletter online then you need to read this book.

The key take -away from this book is:

turn strangers into friends and friends into customers

The Singularity is Near

The Singularity is Near is a book by Ray Kerzweil that discusses the time when man and machine (computer) will merge into one entity. The book makes the “singularity” plausible. The problem I had with the book is that it’s so dense. This is not a book for the uninitiated. You really have to be interested in the subject matter to plow through its contents.

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point has been a significant best seller since its initial publication. Much of this is due to Gladwell’s clear prose and his cogent expression of how change can occur in society – and it would appear that the timing was right on the button: being launched in the late 1990s at a moment when society – through the arrival of internet, mobile phones – began an enormous process of change. It might be fair to say that where our generation regards 1968 as a pivotal year in modern social history – 1997 has produced an even bigger moment of change.

Gladwell’s thesis is that a small idea can spread to become a contagious ‘epidemic’ if it is sticky enough as an idea, and if it is lucky enough to be championed by a good mix of Connectors (people who know a lot of other people), Mavens (people who know a lot about a particular thing or things), and Salesmen.

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