Gauravonomics Blog

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Stephen Baker in BusinessWeek explores the web’s free labor economy with case studies from shopping recommendation community ThisNext, and community-driven market research companies CommuniSpace and Kluster –

Here’s how it works. Entrepreneurs… build meeting places that provide visitors with tools to express themselves, mingle with friends and strangers, and establish their personal “brands.” The result, when it works, is an outpouring of creativity.

Beyond brand-hungry strivers, masses of free laborers continue to toil without ever seeing a payday, or even angling for one. Many find compensation in currencies that predate the market economy. These include winning praise from peers, earning an exalted place within a community, scoring thrills from winning, and finding satisfaction in helping others.

Almost all of the participatory (or social) web is based on our willingness to work for free, to exchange time and labor for reputation and praise. Still, there are two questions that have no clear cut answers. The first is: how does a community owner design financial and non-financial incentives to enlist enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers? The second is: once the volunteer has built a reputation, and earned the praise of her fan following, how does she monetize it (if she does want to monetize it)?

Quick Summary: Read my list of the ten unthinkable futures of marketing, scenarios that seem too far-fetched to be true today, but may seem obvious in retrospect tomorrow.

Yes you read it right. This is not a post about the future of marketing. This is a post about the ten unthinkable futures of marketing.

Unthinkable futures are probabilities we tend to dismiss without thinking, scenarios that seem too far-fetched to be true today, but may seem obvious in retrospect tomorrow.

Inspired by the unthinkable futures game between Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno from fifteen years back, here’s my own list of the ten unthinkable futures of marketing —

1. No products will have price tags anymore. People will pick up products from the mall, or order them online and have them delivered home, and pay only what they want to pay.

(Update: I was aware of the numerous examples of authors and musicians giving away their books and music for free, but I discovered two examples of restaurants giving away food for free, and allowing the patrons to decide what they want to pay for it.)  Read More

Quick Summary: Read about the ‘economics of free’ — Free content -> Attention -> Free product -> Lock-in -> Paid bundled services -> $$$.

Two days back, I was up till late at night, twittering about ‘marketers becoming publishers’ and the ‘economics of free’ –

Content marketing – from ‘marketers buying space from publishers’ to ‘marketers becoming publishers’. (Twitter)

What happens to publishers when marketers become publishers? (Twitter)

Chris Andersen joins the “free is more complicated than you think” debate — http://tinyurl.com/27r66p. (Twitter)

Dilbert creator Scott Adams started the debate with his WSJ column “Giving Stuff Away on the Internet” — http://tinyurl.com/29jt86. (Twitter)

The Long Tail writer Chris Andersen’s next book is called “Free” — http://tinyurl.com/29sd26 — so he may know a thing or two about the topic. (Twitter)

One of the sub-titles he is toying with — “FREE: How companies get rich by charging nothing”. (Twitter)

When marketers become publishers, they give away content for “FREE”. (Twitter)

Because the content is not the end, the content is the means to get attention. (Twitter)  Read More