{"id":2698,"date":"2008-03-03T12:35:39","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T19:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2008-03-03T12:35:42","modified_gmt":"2008-03-03T19:35:42","slug":"the-odysseus-medal-free-has-emerged-as-a-full-fledged-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2698\/the-odysseus-medal-free-has-emerged-as-a-full-fledged-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Odysseus Medal: “Free has emerged as a full-fledged economy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sorry to keep going outside the RE.net for the Odysseus Medal competition, but that’s where the news is right now. Inside the RahRah.net, present company excepted, everything seems to be devoted to mutual back-slapping — which would be boring even if it were warranted. In any case, The Odysseus Medal this week goes to Chris Anderson for Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Thanks to Gillette, the idea that you can make money by giving something away is no longer radical. But until recently, practically everything “free” was really just the result of what economists would call a cross-subsidy: You’d get one thing free if you bought another, or you’d get a product free only if you paid for a service.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, however, a different sort of free has emerged. The new model is based not on cross-subsidies — the shifting of costs from one product to another — but on the fact that the cost of products themselves<\/em> is falling fast. It’s as if the price of steel had dropped so close to zero that King Gillette could give away both razor and blade, and make his money on something else entirely. (Shaving cream?)<\/p>\n

You know this freaky land of free as the Web. A decade and a half into the great online experiment, the last debates over free versus pay online are ending. In 2007 The New York Times<\/cite> went free; this year, so will much of The Wall Street Journal<\/cite>. (The remaining fee-based parts, new owner Rupert Murdoch announced, will be “really special … and, sorry to tell you, probably more expensive.” This calls to mind one version of Stewart Brand’s original aphorism from 1984: “Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive … That tension will not go away.”)<\/p>\n

Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Offering free music proved successful for Radiohead, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and a swarm of other bands on MySpace that grasped the audience-building merits of zero. The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sorry to keep going outside the RE.net for the Odysseus Medal competition, but that’s where the news is right now. Inside the RahRah.net, present company excepted, everything seems to be devoted to mutual back-slapping — which would be boring even if it were warranted. In any case, The Odysseus Medal this week goes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3,6,5,23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blog-carnivals","7":"category-blogging","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-the-odysseus-medal","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1835,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1835\/easy-nomination-form-for-the-odysseus-medal\/","url_meta":{"origin":2698,"position":0},"title":"Easy nomination form for The Odysseus Medal","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I built a quick and easy nomination form for The Odysseus Medal competition. You can continue to use the BlogCarnivals entry form, but I put this together to make it easier to nominate posts written by other people. The form lives at the top of The Odysseus Medal information page,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1907,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1907\/last-call-for-odysseus-medal-nominees\/","url_meta":{"origin":2698,"position":1},"title":"Last call for Odysseus Medal nominees","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I changed the graphic at the top of the page for the better part of last week, an homage to Kris Berg's excellent post, but I don't think anyone noticed. We have a bunch of great entries for The Odysseus Medal, but only you know what we're missing out on.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1961,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1961\/dont-forget-to-nominate-the-posts-you-love-most-for-the-odysseus-medal-competition\/","url_meta":{"origin":2698,"position":2},"title":"Don’t forget to nominate the posts you love most for the Odysseus Medal competition","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been occupied by matters funereal, but life goes on. The deadline for Odysseus Medal nominations is today at 12 Noon PDT\/MST. If you know of something worthy of recognition, your own work or someone else's, nominate it now while it's on your mind. Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1926,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1926\/deadline-looms-for-odysseus-medal-competition-act-now-or-weep-incessantly-sunday-afternoon\/","url_meta":{"origin":2698,"position":3},"title":"Deadline looms for Odysseus Medal competition: Act now or weep incessantly Sunday afternoon","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"There are already a couple dozen nominees for this week's Odysseus Medal competition. What are we missing? Only you know for sure. The deadline for nominations is Sunday at 12 Noon PDT\/MST, but if you know of something orbiting the skirts of perfection, your own work or someone else's, nominate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2216,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2216\/day-of-the-delay-of-the-odysseus-medal\/","url_meta":{"origin":2698,"position":4},"title":"Day of the delay of The Odysseus Medal . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm getting ready for the BloggerCon event at the NAR Convention and I've run myself out of time. I'll post the judging for The Odysseus Medal tomorrow morning. I'll leave the voting open for The People's Choice Award until I'm ready to post. In the mean time, although I've shown\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1874,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1874\/have-a-great-labor-day-but-dont-leave-town-without-submitting-your-odysseus-medal-entries\/","url_meta":{"origin":2698,"position":5},"title":"Have a great Labor Day, but don’t leave town without submitting your Odysseus Medal entries","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Cathy just made me think of this, bless her beautiful soul. Deadline for this week's Odysseus Medal competition is Sunday at 12 Noon PDT\/MST. The People's Choice voting is Sunday afternoon as usual, so take a break form your end of summer reveling to cast a ballot. But take care\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}