March 2009
15 posts
"As sales dry up, software companies turn to free"
From the WSJ: “Consider Tideway Systems Ltd., which makes software that businesses use to monitor back-office computers and typically costs at least $20,000 a year.
The London-based company saw its sales pipeline dry up over the past 18 months. So in November it released a free version of its software. By giving away its program, Tideway figured companies would be more likely to test it...
2 million books at Amazon sell at least 1...
More great Amazon analysis from Morris Rosenthal: “Around 2,000,000 titles at Amazon sell at least one copy a year. They do so without crowding other books off the shelves, and there are millions and millions more titles selling at an even slower pace. But what must drive B&N and Borders absolutely nuts is that the “superstore” portion of Amazon’s inventory, the top...
No more free lunch for open source?
Sigh. Another half-thought through analysis of Free. Matt Asay at CNET, who really should know better, says “There must be some commercial value that a customer can’t get (easily) anywhere else to drive open-source monetization. There are not enough support dollars out there to fund a multibillion-dollar open-source industry, just as there are not enough advertising dollars to fund the...
Twitter moving to a Freemium model
From Silicon Alley Insider: “The company confirms — for the first time we’ve seen, at least — age-old theories that they’ll sell commercial accounts to power users or companies using Twitter. In exchange for a fee, companies could get “more features” on Twitter, the WSJ reports. “
Former WSJ execs debate free vs. paid content
From Poynter: “This week “Reflections of a Newsosaur” published a two-part commentary by former WSJ.com managing editor Bill Grueskin in which he explores “a few common myths” about the site and its evolution:
March 22: The case for charging to read WSJ.com
March 23: Can WSJ pay model work at other sites?”
Yikes--free antibiotics
From AnxietyIndex: “Stop & Shop is offering free 14-day supplies of select generic antibiotics (with prescription, of course) at its nationwide pharmacies. It’s a nice way for the American supermarket chain to show it can help customers with not only their physical woes but some financial ones, as well. (The tagline is “Save more. Feel good.”) ” (thanks to TJ Dietderich for the...
Netflix can stream a high-def movie for less than...
Bandwidth is getting cheaper faster than even processing and storage. Here’s one datapoint, from an analyst quoted by Silicon Alley Insider: “He estimates that it costs Netflix about $0.06 to stream a two-hour movie in standard definition, and about $0.09 to stream a hi-definition movie. At that rate, streaming a typical YouTube video costs approximately 1/100th of a cent.
Open source gaining strength in downturn
From Slashdot: “A February survey of IT managers by IDC indicated that hard times are accelerating the adoption of Linux. The open source operating system will emerge from the recession in a stronger data center position than before, concluded an IDC white paper.”
"Free vs Paid" is the wrong question
Smart analysis from Dan Blank on the big debate over whether newspapers should abandon Free. Excerpt: “Paid vs. free belittles the complexity of who they are serving and how they are serving them. Likely, you don’t have one product offering, but dozens of ways that you segment this. From broad based initiatives meant for branding and to capture attention - to very specific products meant for...
For French speakers: Free is Stealing
Here’s a video of Roland C. Wagner reading a short story caled La Gartuité C’est Le Vol (Free is Stealing) which extrapolates on the current thinking of the French government on “free stuff”. (thanks to Benoit Felten for the link)
Preview of my SXSW panel
Doc Searls has great scene-setter on our SXSW panel on Free on Tues in Austin on Tues. Sample questions to be discussed:
—Why is it that people find “free” so hard to understand?
—What are the connections between free code and free beer?
—What are the advantages, in a crashing economy, to free?
—Yes, it’s not “free everything”, but...
Free to Fremium: 5 lessons from YouSendIt
Great advice in this Andrew Chen guest post. Example: ” If you provide a valuable service the majority of your users will stay with you (most for free and some percentage will subscribe right away). YouSendIt.com’s traffic took a 30% haircut in traffic during this process. If we didn’t have anything further down the funnel this would have been devastating.”
Good Wharton article on Free
Lots of good quotes in this one. Example: “The appeal of “free” has been shown to be so extraordinary that it bends the demand curve. “The demand you get at a price of zero is many times higher than the demand you get at a very low price,” says Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton professor of operations and information management who studies pricing and technology....
Pay for the concert, get all the recorded music...
From Fast Company: “In an effort to hustle up ticket sales in a down economy, the band No Doubt is offering an unheard-of incentive to concertgoers who attend their show: Fans who purchase a full-priced ticket ($42.50) will receive a digital download of their entire catalog—for free.”
Free (ad-supported) Microsoft Office 14
From Silicon Alley Insider, a new business model for Office 14 as described by Microsoft Business Division Chief Stephen Elop “There will be ad-based revenue streams. There’s an opportunity to draw those pirate customers into the revenue stream. We want to draw them into the Windows family and maybe there’s an upsell opportunity later.”
