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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)

‘How to monetize attention’ is going to be the next big question for marketers-publishers. (Twitter)

I thought of the answer almost ten hours later –

The Economics of Free — Free content -> Attention -> Free product -> Lock-in -> Paid bundled services -> $$$ (Twitter)

I’m amazed at Twitter’s ability to help me organize my thoughts by immediately publishing them as ‘thought threads’. I’ll capture similar thought threads in future under a new ‘Twitter Threads’ category.

By the way, if you aren’t following me on Twitter, now is the time to start.

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