What's getting me thinking today

I'm digesting two very thoughtful articles on the idea of free content and how it can generate revenue. See Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business in the March 2008 issue of Wired magazine, and Kevin Kelly's essay Better Than Free. I'm ruminating over these for my June column for EContent magazine; bottom line for econtent providers is that people still pay for something that is obtainable for free, but the information "owner" needs to make it worth their while. And, IMO, lots of information providers have missed a lot of opportunities to generate revenue from their content, because they're looking at the content apart from its surroundings.

Your thoughts?

Comments

[Andrea]

I've see "tip jars" on sites where you can leave a tip to the blogger through Paypal. Don't know how well they work but that's an interesting idea for trying to monetize shorter pieces. --Andrea

free WordPress plugin is at:
http://www.blogclout.com/blog/goodies/buy-me-a-beer-paypal-donation-plugin/

and another article about it is at: http://www.clicknewz.com/804/easy-donation-or-tip-jar-plugin-for-wordpress/