Author: Christopher Carfi

In Wired 16.03, Chris Anderson penned an insightful article entitled "Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business."  In it, Anderson outlined six different ways that things can be "free" yet still create a viable business model.

Download this slide from Slideshare.

These six kinds of free are:

Freemium – Offer a limited-functionality free version of a product to encourage trial, and have a purchasable premium version available for power users, a term coined by Fred Wilson

Advertising – Offer a free service to end users, and sell advertising to advertisers

Cross subsidies – Give the razor away free, and charge for the razor blades

Zero marginal cost – Products such as podcasts and digital music effectively incur a zero marginal cost to "ship" each unit

Labor exchange – Access to the information on a site is free as long as individuals contribute to the content of the site, like Yahoo Answers or Digg

Gift economy – Items are given away at zero cost, Freecycle is a good example

Related:  Doc Searls is putting together a panel on free at SXSW09 entitled "Rebuilding the World with Free Everything."  Check it out.

Data credit: Wired Magazine
Razor:  derek
Gift: grobleto

Short version:  I’ve proposed a panel for South by Southwest on the topic of how customers are creating new types of markets.  Panels are chosen in part by votes from YOU.  I’d love your vote.  Three steps to voting:

1. Sign in to the SXSW Panel Picker
2. Go to this link to select "Flashmarkets: From the Roman Agora to the Mobile Web" 
3. Click the stars

   to vote.

Thanks!

Only Slightly Longer Version:

South by Southwest (SXSW) is one of my two favorite conferences.  (This one is the other fave.)  Part of the reason that I really dig SXSW is the collaborative and participative nature of, well, every aspect of the event.

In particular, this is evidenced by how the event chooses its speakers, which is by way of a combination of the SXSW Advisory Board, SXSW Staff, and YOU!  See below for the graphic of how the percentages shake out.

The panel I’ve proposed to SXSW is focused on how markets are changing as vendors cede control to customers.  (That’s us.)  The full description is as follows:

"From the Greek Agora to the Dutch flower market at Aalsmeer to eBay and
the iTunes App Store, markets have always been a key element of social
civilization. But what are "markets" really, and how is technology
changing their complexion? From GPS and location-based services to
concepts such as VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), this session
will examine the seven types of markets that technology has enabled,
and how those markets are affecting our business relationships."

I’d like to request your assistance in helping this conversation get onto the agenda.  It will take less than one minute. (I promise.)

1. Sign in to the SXSW Panel Picker
2. Go to this link to select "Flashmarkets: From the Roman Agora to the Mobile Web" 
3. Click the stars

   to vote.

That’s it.

I really appreciate your help, and am looking forward to seeing you in Austin.

Just got off the phone with CRM übermensch Paul Greenberg, who is well on the mend after last week’s scary, scary incident. Isn’t it scary to think that someone can be hit by their own car? I’ve never heard of it happening until now, but it’s something that you see in movies all the time, and never do you believe that it could be happening to someone you have a working relationship with. It’s a good job that his neighbor found him when they did as it could’ve been a lot worse otherwise.

To be honest with you, I just can’t get over the fact that he could’ve died. And all because his car had hit him when he was on the floor. Thinking about it, and the car he has, he was lucky that he didn’t come away with life-threatening injuries. Though suffering from severe head trauma is bad enough, he could’ve suffered many broken bones too. But he didn’t. If this was the case, he would’ve been ready and waiting to try some of the many different products on sites like OrganicCBDNugs to help relieve the debilitating pain that he would have found himself in. CBD is known to aid with pain, and he would’ve done everything in his power to be as pain-free as possible.

With that being said, I think the strong painkillers he was on at the hospital probably did the trick. Thankfully, he is now in the process of recovery and he should be back soon. All is well and things are tracking by the numbers, so he’ll be back up and at ’em soon.

He’s currently working on the 4th Edition of CRM at the Speed of Light.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

• Chapter 1: The Customer Ecosystem
• Chapter 2: CRM 2.0
• Chapter 3: Definitions Galore
• Chapter 4: Customer Experience

You can also follow Paul on Twitter at @pgreenbe.

Hey Paulie…glad you’re feeling better.  You scared me, bud.

Sean looks for a little help from DNS Made Easy after he (admittedly) screwed up, and gets clubbed about the head and shoulders with one of the worst bits of customer (ahem) service I’ve heard of.  The note is from "Kate" at DNSMadeEasy to Sean.  An excerpt:

"Wow…. Spent hours trying to help you today. Offered you
a refund even though we have a zero refund policy and this is the
attitude you give me?!?!?!

> 1. an active email account was shut down without trying an alternative
> method of contact. you do have my physical address. for what reason, i’ve no
> idea.

Are you joking me? You expect us to send you personal letters by
mail? For an account of your size? Should we fly to your house also and
knock on your door? Should I call your whole family also and let them
know you are late paying your bill?
Please….  this obviously is not a business for you.

> 2. in this day and age, with moore’s law creating storage
> business models left and right, i’m shocked that you didn’t
> simply put a freeze on the account. my client called me today. if you simply
> froze the account, we would’ve been back in business this afternoon.

It was frozen for 4 days then removed. Not our fault that your
client noticed after it was removed. Not our fault if you give us your
free yahoo account to check your emails. Not our fault you do not check
your free email’s spam box.

Since you made a list for me, here is a list for you.

1. Don’t use your free yahoo email account for hobby / business. Did
   you tell your friend / client that is why you lost all of their email?
2. Learn to write down when your services expire. You are lucky we
   gave you over 2 weeks. Most providers shut you down much sooner.
3. Always pay your bills on time.
4. Don’t be rude to people that have tried to help you for free…. Eventually no one will try to help you.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions, concerns, or comments regarding this ticket.

-Kate
DNS Made Easy Sales / Support
[email protected]

Please let us know if our response did not answer your question. To
reply to this ticket you can do so by email (just reply) or by the
support site."

Read the whole thing here.  Unreal.  (N.B.  Please don’t feed the troll in his comments.)

Things I Wonder About:  Did I spell "skeevy" right?  Not sure I’ve every seen it in print before.

Our friends over at Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs) just sent in a note that they are firing up some festivities next week at LinuxWorld here in SF.  The details:

"Just a heads up that OK is making a showing at the upcoming LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco.  On Tuesday August 5th at 4pm the group is headed to ThirstyBear Brew Co. to throw a few back. If there are any hackers out in Northern California that would like to discuss microkernel technology, share ideas or just hang out, come and grab a drink with us at ThirstyBear around 4pm onwards.  For those that don’t know, the bar is at:

ThirstyBear Brewing Company
661 Howard St.
San Francisco, California 94105
Telephone:  415-974-0905

Tim and Gernot will be in their black OK t-shirts and should be pretty easy to find."

(Note that Brenna’s shirt in the pic over there says "I Operate in Privileged Mode."  Actually, here’s a better shot of the shirt.  Geek humor; I love it.  :-))

The OK Labs folks are a blast to hang out with; highly recommended.

Believing that success at Guitar Hero implies any talent with an actual instrument is akin to thinking that success at whiffle ball implies you’ll be able to hit a fastball thrown by a pro at Yankee Stadium.

This analogy may apply in other domains as well.

Deborah Micek (@CoachDeb) writes:

"I’ve realized it’s more upsetting 2 lose contacts than lose $ money.
Felt disconnected this week 1st losing all contacts on iphone + Twitter"

Do you agree?  Why or why not?

Great liveblog of the How To Make Money panel at #blogher08 by Christine Herron.  Read it.

I was torn, and actually in the Open Source session at #blogher08, so I missed the Content Syndication session, which was running concurrently.  Luckily, Beth Kanter was live-Twittering it.  Here are the resources she noted.

• kanter

  
    Sharing  http://socialmedia4change.p…
  

• kanter

  
    Building traffic and using technorati – here’s some step-by-steps http://tinyurl.com/6e4hlk
  
  

• kanter

  
    Here’s one of my favorite posts re: twitter by Tara Hunt – gives you ideas of what to tweet http://tinyurl.com/4dzwef

• kanter

  
    At content syndication session – here’s a step-by-step for getting up to speed with twitter to listen http://tinyurl.com/55t939

Thanks, Beth!

It has been quite the busy week in Cerado-land, as we were supporting the two hottest tickets in town, PSFK and BlogHer, with custom, iPhone-enabled pocket guides.

As PSFK wraps up today, BlogHer kicks off on Friday.  We’re supporting the conference and created a custom Ventana^TM that will serve as a mobile-friendly Official Pocket Guide and connect the event with its attendees in real time. 

There are three versions of the BlogHer Pocket Guide available:

• For Your iPhone

• For Your Treo, Blackberry, Nokia, or other mobile device

• For Your Blog (this is the cool blog widget you see over there ==>)

The guide offers quick access to…

People – The Network page lets attendees add themselves to the guide  and link to their Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

News– The latest blog posts,  announcements, and comments are the first things you see when you open the Guide.

Agenda – The Agenda page will be updated in real time whenever the conference agenda shifts.

Help – We’ve included a helpful FAQ to help you keep track of everything that’s going on.

The BlogHer ’08 annual conference is like no other — it is the
thrilling diversity of the blogosphere come to life! Featuring
technical labs, educational workshops, intense discussion sessions,
relevant sponsors, speakers from every corner of the blogosphere,
established and new, and plenty of opportunities to network and
socialize. Appropriate for anyone and everyone who’s interested in any
kind of blogging, from the personal to the professional to the
political.

You can learn more about Cerado Ventana at ventana.cerado.com.