[OWW-Discuss] Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business

[Austin Che]

    On slashdot:
    http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/26/0335227
    
    I think the 'penny gap' is particularly interesting. There's a
    huge difference in market and psychology between charging nothing
    and any amount, even one penny.

    There's also an interesting grouping of 'free' business models. It
    seems like OWW will need to pick one of them to sustain
    itself. Here's how I applied them to OWW:
    
    Freemium: main wiki is free, we charge for private wikis or
    premium services
    
    Advertising: ads on the wiki, paid listings
    
    Cross-subsidies: We use a free wiki to sell something else (OWW
    t-shirts? OWW kits?) 
    
    Zero marginal cost: the cost of hosting/running the site reach
    zero so we don't need to get any money.
    
    Labor exchange: Make money off the labor generated by OWW
    users. For example, sell the rights to publish OWW protocols to
    books.
    
    Gift economy: rely on altruism.
    
-- 
Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899