The Equity Kicker

Wednesday fun – Chris Anderson abuses ‘free’

In an ironic twist Chris Anderson is guilty of taking content for his latest book from Wikipedia for free and without citation:

Chris Anderson and his US publisher Hyperion have said they intend to "correct" future editions of his title Free after the Virginia Quarterly Review said it had "discovered almost a dozen passages [...]

Freeconomics – maybe people will start paying for things

The folks at Chinwag were kind enough to ask me to chair a panel on the topic of freeconomics last night. I’ve written extensively about ‘free’ as a business model extensively before, but to recap the argument for free is that more and more goods are being delivered digitally, the marginal cost of delivering [...]

Free is the only business model for online news

That is a feeling I have had for sometime and is re-enforced by the recent results from FT.com.

This is from PaidContent:

But, despite FT.com unveiling a new access model in November (giving five articles free per month, and a further 30 for those who register), we’re still seeing a plateau in paying [...]

Newspaper companies really embracing the web

Newspaper companies are often seen as soon-to-be-extinct relics of a bygone age, but at least two of them have read the tea leaves correctly, and are embracing the new order. I am thinking of the Guardian and the New York Times.

I’m writing this because of two bits of news I just read.

Firstly, [...]

The New New Thing

Last week Jeff Nolan wrote a post entitled Incrementalism and “The New New Thing” where he bemoans the lack of true innovation and the state of venture capital generally. He is talking about Silicon Valley, but what he writes applies equally over here in Europe.

He correctly observes that a lot of money is [...]

More on ‘free’ as a business model

Last week Chris Anderson of Wired and Long Tail fame posted a preview of his new book on free as a business model and I wrote a post summing up his argument (which I largely agree with) and calling for innovation in business models – we will all still need to find [...]