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

Chris Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2010

"Chris Anderson's Free unpacks a paradox of the online marketplace--people making money charging nothing. What was once just a marketing gimmick has morphed into the basis of a trillion-dollar economy."
--Newsweek

"Anderson's timing couldn't be better. Free arrives as whole swaths of the economy are having to contend with consumers finding ways--some illegal, many not--to go Free."
--Boston Sunday Globe

"I'd put Anderson and his work on par with Malcolm Gladwell and Clayton M. Christensen as one of the more important pieces of business philosophy published in the emerging global, digital era."
--Alan T. Saracevic, San Francisco Chronicle 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.

Download the audiobook of Free for free! Details inside the book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all, argues Anderson (The Long Tail). He illustrates how savvy businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue with such models as cross-subsidies (giving away a DVR to sell cable service) and freemiums (offering Flickr for free while selling the superior FlickrPro to serious users). New media models have allowed successes like Obama's campaign billboards on Xbox Live, Webkinz dolls and Radiohead's name-your-own-price experiment with its latest album. A generational and global shift is at play—those below 30 won't pay for information, knowing it will be available somewhere for free, and in China, piracy accounts for about 95% of music consumption—to the delight of artists and labels, who profit off free publicity through concerts and merchandising. Anderson provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. As in Anderson's previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Although Chris Anderson puts forward an intriguing argument in this cheerful, optimistic book, many critics remained unconvinced. They praised his engaging writing style, his amusing examples and anecdotes, and his clear explanations of complicated concepts and technologies, but they still questioned his conclusions. In addition to Anderson's own admission that YouTube -- one of his chief examples -- has been a financial black hole for Google, reviewers cited their own examples of industries that seem to run counter to Free's generalizations, such as broadcast television's fiscal struggles in the face of premium cable's expansion. Though some trends seem to point in the direction of Free, the jury remains out for the present. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1 edition (April 20, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140131032X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401310325
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (161 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the editor of Wired Magazine and the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More and FREE: The Future of a Radical Price.

I live in Berkeley, CA, with my wife and five children.

In my spare time, I have a hobby-gone-wrong in the form of an aerial robotics community I run called DIY Drones and a company I co-founded called 3D Robotics. We develop open source autopilots and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which some people find thrilling and others find worrying. You can make up your own mind: diydrones.com