as you may have already seen it, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, recently wrote an article titled “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” . it’s an interesting read… it’s in support of his new book coming out in 2009, titled “FREE” … for those who remember, the whole long tail thing had started with one of his articles as well… it’s a pretty dubious marketing & distribution model for a book… what is the mission of wired? objective journalism of the innovative edge? or pushing chris anderson’s books? anyways, i guess the model works… i don’t think this new article is anything earth shattering, nothing nearly as impactful as the long tail discussion… but a review of that article, this post is not…
i am taking game theory this semester, the most demanded course in the berkeley mba curriculum… not only due to the intriguing subject matter, but mostly due to the professor who teaches it, and the awards he has won for his teaching: professor john morgan. this course plays a key role in teaching us to be strategic thinkers, to look forward and reason back before our actions and many other tools that any strategist will need throughout their careers… john morgan is an incredible lecturer, and a very smart man, we’ve all been pretty amazed by our experience so far…
in our most recent game theory lecture, we discussed the browser wars (ie vs netscape) of the late 90’s and the impact of IE being free (bundled with windows) and the role it played in crushing netscape. after the class, i felt chris anderson’s free article would be relevant, so i forwarded it to john morgan… and his response confirmed by man crush on john morgan:
“How much will the book cost?”
I would love to hear chris anderson’s and his publisher hyperion’s response to this, and see if they actually would have the guts to walk the talk… my gut says they wouldn’t…
