That 'Free' Stuff Is Catching On...

from the it's-everywhere... dept

It seems that everyone is jumping on the "free" bandwagon. Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about Kevin Kelly's take on the subject. On Monday, Chris Anderson's manifesto published in Wired Magazine, and at about the same time, the consumer trend research firm Trend Watching published its only monthly trend report highlighting the growing importance of "free" in business models. It's worth reading, as it lays out not just a variety of business models that include free, but a large set of examples showing how each one works. It's neat to see all of these different things come out at the same time -- once again highlighting the concept that ideas generally aren't formed in a vacuum. The trends that resulted in so many people recognizing the same thing at once are all around us. Yet, if we believed in the world where artificial scarcity rules, then we'd be focused on who "owned" this concept and who got the rights every time someone else mentioned it. That, of course, would be silly. By allowing so many different people to express these concepts, not only do we all get to see different perspectives on the same concept, but we get to learn from each other and build on these ideas.

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