Gauravonomics Blog

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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)

In two recent posts regarding personal ads on Craigslist, Freakonomics analyzes the economics of gold-digging and sugar-daddying . Basically, if you put together a beautiful 20-something out-of-work actress and a rich 30-something investment banker, marriage makes economic sense for the woman (but not the man) and dating makes economic sense for the man (but not the woman).

What you suggest is a simple trade - you bring your looks to the party, and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub - your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity… So, in economic terms, you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset… So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold … hence the rub … marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage. (link)

The line between “you must be mad to do this” and “you must be mad not to do this” is a very thin one… and you know what… it shifts.

Ever since TechCrunch reported on Google’s social networking plans, codenamed ‘Maka-Maka’, the entire blogosphere is going gaga over it.

While a lot of bloggers are looking at ‘Maka-Maka’ in a Orkut vs. Facebook context, I think Google will be short-selling itself if it looked at the opportunity in such a limited way:

The bigger vision is to combine all of Google’s apps and services through Maka-Maka. Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use. It just needs to bring everything together… in different ways, along with data about you from other social services across the Web, and give developers access to the social layer tying all of these apps together underneath. The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network. (TechCrunch)

By the way, if you are wondering what ‘Maka-Maka’ means, it may refer to a Hawaiian song about friendship, a shop for women’s dresses, a Japanese RPG (role playing game), or a modern, all-color adult manga about two girls who appear to be “friends with benefits” (via Andy Beal).