Gratis: El Futuro de un Precio Radical - Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson, autor de uno de los ensayos que mas ha influido al mundo empresarial en los ultimos años, La economia Long Tail, vuelve con otro titulo capaz de hacer historia: Gratis. Con su perspicacia unica para localizar los fenomenos mas significativos del mercado, en este nuevo libro explora un hecho ya constatado: el futuro esta en el negocio de lo gratuito. Lejos de lo que pudiera parecer, lo gratuito no supone perdidas sino enormes beneficios: regalando, es posible hacer dinero. El entorno virtual, donde los costes tienden a cero, representa un buen ejemplo de ello, con negocios como Google, Facebook o Wikipedia. Pero fuera de la Red encontramos tambien buenos ejemplos, como los diarios gratuitos. Hoy, a diferencia del siglo XX -dice Chris Anderson- la gratuidad no es un truco, un sistema de marketing, sino un modelo economico absolutamente nuevo. Para conocer a fondo el fenomeno y ser competitivo en este nuevo mercado, Gratis supone una lectura obligatoria. / In his revolutionary bestseller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company's survival. The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long. Just think that in 1961, a single transistor cost $10; now Intel's latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor--effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don't apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage. Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you're trying to sell. In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.