''Free: The Future of a Radical Price '' is the second book written by

Chris Anderson Chris Anderson may refer to: Sports * Chris Anderson (baseball) (born 1992), American baseball player * Chris Anderson (cheese roller), 22-time winner of annual cheese rolling * Chris Anderson (footballer, born 1925) (1925–1986), Scottish footb ...

, editor-in-chief of ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' magazine. The book was published on July 7, 2009 by Hyperion. ''Free'' is Anderson's follow-up to his book ''

The Long Tail In statistics and business, a long tail of some distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the "head" or central part of the distribution. The distribution could involve popularities, random nu ...

'', published in 2006.

Overview

''Free'' follows a thread from the previous work. It examines the rise of pricing models which give products and services to customers for free, often as a strategy for attracting users and up-selling some of them to a premium level. That class of model has become widely referred to as "

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

" and has become very popular for a variety of digital products and services.

Release

''Free'' was released in the United States on July 7, 2009, though the night before, on his blog, Chris Anderson posted
browser readable version
of the book and the unabridged audiobook version. Anderson generated controversy for

plagiarizing Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...

content from the online encyclopedia

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

in ''Free''. Anderson responded to the claim on his ''The Long Tail'' blog, stating that there were disagreements between him and the publisher over accurate citation of Wikipedia due to the changing nature of its content, leading him to integrate footnotes into the text. Also on his blog, he took full responsibility for the mistakes and noted that the digital editions of ''Free'' were corrected. The notes and sources were later provided as a download on his blog.

Reception

Regardless of the controversy, the $29.99 hard copy version of ''Free'' debuted as #12 on

the New York Times Best Seller List ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

. It was also available as a free download for a limited time, and 200,000 to 300,000 digital versions were downloaded in the first two weeks. The unabridged audiobook remains free, while the abridged version costs $7.49. In a widely read review in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'',

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...

roundly criticized the book's premise. Anderson responded online on his blog at Wired.com and on PBS's

Charlie Rose Charles Peete Rose Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American former television journalist and talk show host. From 1991 to 2017, he was the host and executive producer of the talk show '' Charlie Rose'' on PBS and Bloomberg LP. Rose also co-an ...

show. The book was also reviewed in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''.

References

External links

* Chris Anderson's blog. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Free: The Future Of A Radical Price 2009 non-fiction books Economics books Works about the information economy Economics of intellectual property Hyperion Books books

Overview

Release

Reception

See also

References

External links