Pragamatic Approach to the Free Business Model
September 15, 2009
Greg Sandoval conducted an interview with Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt. Mr. Masnick, like the addled goose, finds some of the antics of traditional publishing outfits amusing. The interview, in my opinion, is a must read. I want to quote one segment from the interview, which appeared on Cnet on September 13, 2009. The question Mr. Masnick answered was, “Are you profitable?” Mr. Masnick, according to the write up, replied:
We are profitable. The project itself has definitely been profitable. We didn’t want to set too high of expectations ourselves, we kind of wanted to see where it was going. Some of our basic assumptions we’ve learned were wrong but in a good way. We sort of naturally expected that least expensive levels would be the top sellers. That hasn’t been true. To date, the top seller has been the package called the Approaching Infinity Package, which is a book based on a series of Techdirt posts about understanding the economics and business models. We took those posts and expanded on it a little more. People are buying that package, which also comes with a T-shirt. It is our best seller so far.
I found this comment quite suggestive. The Disney approach of having collateral like T shirts and packages like a weekend package at Disneyworld strikes me as a potentially useful model to explore.
Stephen Arnold, September 15, 2009
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