from PML Media

The future’s bright and The future’s free!

Guest post by  Kent Austin aka The Copy Doctor

“It’s only the giving that makes you what you are.”
Ian Anderson

Surfing through the blogosphere recently, I came upon the results of a recent survey which sought to determine the “Best To-Do List Manager”.  I would give the blog a mention, but sadly in my haste I failed to take note of the blogger. Sinful! Sorry!

Anyway, here are the results in ascending order:

• Todoist 4% (177 votes)
• Other 11% (489 votes)
• Plain Text 12% (532 votes)
• Remember the Milk 19% (827 votes)
• Microsoft Outlook 23% (1001 votes)
• Pen and Paper 29% (1262 votes)

Total Votes: 4288
Who would have thought it? All these years I’ve been secretly ashamed of my dog-eared paper diary only to discover that I’m not a Luddite after all! So much for the brave new world of technological advancement…

Free stuff is changing the face of business.

Newspapers, DVDs, T shirts, phones, software, even holiday flights…

This is what happens when advances in technology allow things to be made for next to nothing. And, in the kingdom of ‘free’ it’s the infinitely duplicative, cost-free digital product which reigns supreme.

Of course, digital products aren’t really cost-free. The cost is in the prototype.   Take Google’s Picassa photo management system, for example. How many hours and millions of dollars did it take to develop? And yet, along with many thousands of other digital products, it’s downloadable for free.  So what’s the catch?

Author Chris Anderson claims it’s all down to reputation and time. In his new book, The Long Tail, he considers a brave new world where the old economic certainties are being undermined by a growing flood of free goods.  As an increasing number of things become available for free, our decisions to make use of them will be determined by two resources far more valuable than money: the popular reputation of what is on offer and the time we have available for it. In the future, Anderson argues, when we talk of the ‘money economy’ we will talk of the ‘reputation economy’ and the ‘time economy’ in the same breath, and our world will never be the same again.

Anderson is right. But this is nothing new. Information publishers have been working to this identical principle since the early days of direct mail.  

As an information publisher, most of what I publish I give away entirely free of charge, but it doesn’t follow that just because it’s free that it’s going to be read, viewed or acted upon.  This will only happen if I take account of the ‘time / money / reputation ’equation.  The value of any freebie is determined in direct proportion to its immediate usefulness.  Google Picassa saves time, right? It’s free, so it saves you money, right?  You trust Google’s reputation, right? Et voila! It’s a hit!

What’s in it for Google? Enhanced reputation via brand exposure, that’s what.  (And that’s exactly what’s in it for me, in case you were wondering. It’s a self-nurturing circle.) As we all know, Google makes the vast bulk of its revenue through Google Adwords advertising. Yahoo! and MSN come a very poor second and third.

Google maintains its world-dominating marketing mix by giving stuff away, most recently with its ‘Chrome’ internet browser, which is no doubt destined to give Internet Explorer a few headaches. OK, it may not happen overnight. But the smart players in the world of ‘free’ know that patience is of the essence. Give and you shall receive, but trip lightly and with small steps. 

Best wishes Kent – The copy Doctor

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