Kevin Kelly, the founder and former editor of Wired, and the Whole Earth Catalog has written an awesome essay titled ‘Better than Free‘ which dictates 8 guidelines for selling products in the age of the free copy. Having never done marketing or sales work myself, I actually took for granted that this was what happened already, so I’m glad I don’t have to re-learn anything. The strongest point throughout the essay is that what’s for sale isn’t the object itself, rather it’s about what I’m going to call the “Who, How and When” attributes of the object. Who is the object being delivered to, How is it getting there and When does the consumer get it in their hands.
the money in this networked economy does not follow the path of the copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and attention has its own circuits.