FREE: The Future of a Radical Price

By: Chris Anderson

Narrated by: Chris Anderson

Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author heralds the future of business in Free. In his revolutionary best seller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that, in many instances, businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them.

Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company's survival. The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long.

Just think that in 1961 a single transistor cost $10; now Intel's latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor - effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don't apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage. Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy.

Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you're trying to sell.

In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.

©2009 Chris Anderson (P)2009 Hyperion

Critic reviews

"As in Anderson's previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating." ( Publishers Weekly)

So many A-HA moments!

This book was a great listen, but there were so many insights that I could barely pay attention. I like this so much, I actually bought the paper version so I could scribble in the margins.
As a knowledge manager, it gave me the concepts that help define some of the attention scarcity versus information abundance issues.
READ THIS NOW!

Out dated

Good thoughts
Seemed like a long book report. However it did explain in detail the idea of free marketing.

Good Content, Hard To Follow

I loved the content of this book. It describes how companies can operate with free business models while still making a profit. Free has definitely become a big trend with software on the Internet. I never understood how these business made money before listening to this book. Having this book free of charge was also a big bonus. I will most likely purchase another book from this author.

I only gave the performance 3 stars because the narration was extremely fast. It feels like I didn't catch on to some of the points because of fast pace reading. This may be the case because the author is also the narrator and he knows the material well. Usually I like having audio books read by the author but in this instance it would probably be better if it was narrated by someone other than the author.

Great content, well read, could have been shorter

Chris Anderson has a command of the material and is great at reading it. I found the content enlightening and the stories engaging. Somewhat repetitive. Over-reinforced. Could have been shorter but still a great read/listen.

Great business ideas

The pros: The book not only tells you how free economy was born and why it is important, but how to apply it to your business model.

The cons: It is a little outdated in the examples but the principles are still valid.

FREE!

and worth every penny!

A great look at a changing economic paradigm. I'd have paid more.

still relevant

first of all I was excited the book was free second of all I was surprised to see how it is still very relevant even today I also appreciated the narrator he did a good job

like this one

Chris Anderson ' insightful look at the world of free... I have read one other of Chris ' books and always enjoy his views.. worth a listen

fascinating!

how could anyone know free could be so insightful and enlightening? listen to this and see a different way to do things. ..

It make sense

This is a very educational book. The author explained well why we get free stuffs and why businesses do them for marketing. So now, we know, while we get deep discounts w/ amazon & the truth is they're earning too much from this trick.

You gotta listen to this!