Comments on: The End of “Free” http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/ What's Hot & What's Cooking in Scholarly Publishing - from the Society for Scholarly Publishing Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:16:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Jeff Ward Wants My Writing — Free, #4 « Photocritic International http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/#comment-25714 Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:40:04 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=4188#comment-25714 [...] of commentaries on this issue from such sources as Nick Cernis, Mark Evans, Jemima Kiss, David Crotty, and comics expert Scott McCloud (be sure to also see Part 2 of McCloud’s thought [...]

]]> By: Bench Marks » Blog Archive » Link Roundup 06-05-2009 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/#comment-3416 Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:44:58 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=4188#comment-3416 [...] The End Of Free Last week’s posting at the Scholarly Kitchen, discussing the idea of using free content as a marketing tool, and how some uses are reaching the end of their usefulness. I have a new blog entry there that will be out on Monday discussing Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Wave. Teen Practices Very interesting set of observations of how teenagers use technology. Twitter and e-mail are boring things that old people use. Once again proving the idea that different tools are appropriate at different stages of one’s life and social development. This study backs it up with more numbers. Landmark study: DRM truly does make pirates out of us all A few weeks back, I wrote about the Kindle’s DRM: By providing a product that suffers the limitations of lock-in and prevents users from doing the things they’re used to doing with books, Amazon is encouraging potentially honest customers to become copyright infringers. [...]

]]> By: davideedle http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/#comment-3302 Thu, 28 May 2009 00:01:25 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=4188#comment-3302 David

I think you are spot on with your observation:

“Give readers a reason to find your content indispensable and unique”

Maybe we need to relook at the equation. Doesn’t matter whether your content is free or paid, if it’s crap, not relevant, not useful, then noone will read it.

Presuming you are creating content that someone wants and needs, then the argument between paid and free is, as the Mercury News person says, whether there is sufficient value in the content, its context and presentation to attract a paying crowd.

20 years ago I didn’t have CNN on cable TV. I didn’t have a plethora of internet news sources. And I read the newspaper everyday. Now I read online, and use tools like Google Reader to organise the information. Plus I subscribe to a couple of key online publications in my particular areas of interest.

Cheers…David

]]> By: Gabe Alvaro http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/#comment-3284 Tue, 26 May 2009 20:41:08 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=4188#comment-3284 “But is “free” reaching the end of its value as a marketing scheme?”

I sure hope so. I much prefer the transparency used in public television where they state boldly “This program paid for by the [insert philathopic org name here] foundation.” Nothing is truly free and a scholarly audience should be interested in knowing a) that what is being provided has a cost and b) who is footing the bill.

]]> By: thorn http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/#comment-3283 Tue, 26 May 2009 18:33:49 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=4188#comment-3283 what if the decline in paid newspaper subscriptions and free news content on the ‘intertubes’ are just a coincidence?

i just realized the other day, that by 1995 — when the internet was becoming hugely widespread and every search-engine search included more porn-links than not — i had been a full adult for more than 15 years.

i have *never* subscribed to a newspaper. kind of got me wondering how many others like me might be ‘out there’.

]]> By: The end of ‘free’? | Paul Coyne http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/05/25/the-end-of-free/#comment-3272 Mon, 25 May 2009 13:24:17 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=4188#comment-3272 [...] going to include the full extract of this entry from the Scholarly Kitchen. The piece suggests that ‘Free’ as a means of distributing content may be coming to an [...]

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