Introduction
Before I read this article, I was attracted by the topic of this article – “Better than Free”. What is better than free? Everyone likes free things. Everyone goes for it when there are free things. I was curious about the idea of – Better than free.
“Better than Free”
The internet is a copy machine
The author stated that “The internet is a copy machine”. It is the most suitable words to describe the information on the internet. It is because that everything on the internet will be copy again and again. For example, when we are out of idea on doing an assignment, we will find the information on the internet and get some inspiration and idea from it. From this, we copy the idea of other people’s work and make it into ours.
How can we make money with the “copy machine” while the information can be easily copied in millions? The author had stated there are eight intangible values that are better than free.
Eight intangible values that are better than free:
Books and Internet
1. Immediacy – People can get free copy online for free but still there are people will pay money for it. Why so? Because people want the immediacy. For example, when a new “Harry Potter” was released, there are people lines up in front of the book store in the early morning just to buy the books. There are even people that camp it in front of the book store the night before it release just to get the books. Internet can’t do all this. Another example, people will still spend money to watch movie even though the movie will be free to watch or download through internet sooner or later. Why? Because of immediacy. They want to enjoy the movie once it was release.
To stand out - personalized
2. Personalization – There are bloggers earning money by blogging; the more visitors they have to their blog, the more money they earn. There are many bloggers around the world. They blog about different stuff everyday and how does a blogger to make his or her blog stands out in order to attract the visitors? The answer here will be personalized. This makes them different from other bloggers and makes the visitor remember and differentiate them from other bloggers easily and visit their blogs frequently.
Get help from Manual
3. Interpretation – How people learn a new thing? For me, I prefer guidance from others – people or manual. The author gave a good example in the article - there are companies like Red Hat provide paid support for free software and they earn money by support and guidance.
Online shopping vs in store shopping
4. Authenticity – Nowadays there are many people selling clothes through internet because it is cheap, more convenience and so on. But still many people still prefers to go to the shops and buy it. It is because they can know the quality of the clothes and the actual size, and make sure it is perfectly fine before purchase it or they can go back and change it if something goes wrong. They feel that the shop will be more reliable and warranty. Online shopping can’t do that. People do not know the quality of the clothes, the actual size of the clothes, odes it fits and whether the clothes in perfect form. Therefore, people rather pay more and go to the shop to buy clothes.
5. Accessibility – Accessibility talk about backed up. The author state that the ownership sucks and he gave a good example of it - Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires.
The environment of a football match
6. Embodiment – Internet is a virtual world. You can’t touch or feel the internet. It the same goes to the information and everything available in the internet. It means that it do not have the feeling of embodiment. For me, I like to read through an article on a paper more than on a laptop screen. It because I can easily take notes at the side on the paper or make a mark on it to remind myself. Other than that, when you watch a football match through your laptop screen is so much different from watching live in the stadium. You can’t enjoy the environment in the stadium, the excitement and the feel when everyone is shouting together; become sad when they team you support missed the goal and so much more. It is much more fun to watch it live in the stadium, that’s why, there are many people willing to paid the expensive tickets and watch it in the stadium.
7. Patronage – “Audiences want to pay creators” – Kelly. It’s so true and this makes the music records to sales while there are songs available online for downloading. Like the author said, the fans feel connection between them and their idol when they purchase the album. It also shows the appreciation to their hard work. Another example is that people will purchase song thru iPod while there are songs available online for download.
Harry Potter =)
8. Findability – “No matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless.” – Kelly. The author clearly state that a work that can be seen and can be found is very important and valuable. The internet has all sort of information and there are millions and millions of information of work, so it’s not easy for a specific work to be seen. This is known as clutter on the internet. For example, if J.K Rowling publish “Harry Potter” through internet it has huge possibility that her work won’t be seen and this lead to work that not sales. Besides that, people can easily make copy with it or stole her idea and produce a better work.
These eight facts are the basic things for people that want to earn money from conducting the business online. So, you should understand it, remember it if you want to conduct a business online or offline.
Well written blog post.I agree on all your points especially the personalization,it is true that bloggers have their own style to blog which make them difference. What's more, they could get revenue as the more people visit their blog, it is fast and efficient.
ReplyDeletewell, good post jia Jing.
ReplyDeleteYup, internet today is like a copy machine, people spend a few day or maybe a few hour to write an article, but we can copy everything at once by just a few minutes. How fair it's?
But, there is another case, The common as we can see wasm for instance, Facebook user used to write article or blog on facebook, we can share it out as we like. The internet now is about Sharing.
very well written jia jing. I do agree that bloggers have their own style of writing. Just take kennysia and normal blogger... you can spot the different as well. and now, creating a blog and earn money is everyone's part time to earn side income... so why not? and with facebook and twitter, it makes things easier too.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the point you explain however if everything is free for copies, then there are no point for the original copies creator to come out with new ideas as they can’t protect their pieces. If all the copies are free for charges, the original will become no value as people can find it on the website that provided free download to get the copies. I think this will become a big problem for the society as creators are not willing to publish their copies again.
ReplyDelete