It seems to me that information, like fresh air, wants to be FREE.
During the early days of the commercial Internet (1994, 1995) everybody was selling information. I sold my book, Design Your Future, on the Internet. It was easy. Now, more and more, I see authors giving away e-books, courses and other valuable information. We have sites today where you can find reports and other detailed information on a tremendous array of subjects for FREE.
Take news. At the beginning, not many newspapers were online. The news organizations were selling print newspapers. Now many news organizations, such as the N.Y. Times and the L.A. Times, have websites filled with news. In addition, portals and other busy sites have news, stock information, and sports. It's hard to find a site that doesn't have some kind of news. Everybody is in the news business. Eventually, will anyone be able to SELL news?
I must say that the Wall Street Journal is an exception.
Magazines seem to be following a similar course. Major magazines are getting on the Net and offering a lot of good information for FREE.
How about music? This is another form of information. Some advocate selling music on a try-before-you-buy approach. But I'm wondering, will the people buy when they can get their music via MP3 for FREE? Teenagers get the music and email it to their friends. It circulates for FREE.
How about graphics? Here again, lots of sites are offering images for free.
Which brings me to software. Software was very expensive before the Internet became popular. Then Netscape decided to give its browser, the Navigator, away for FREE. This put Netscape on the map until Microsoft tried the same tactic. Now the Internet Explorer is the most popular browser. During this time many excellent software products were given away. Others have come down in price. Will software be FREE in the future?
In China and other developing countries, pirating of software products is commonplace. All software producers are working hard to prevent this. But will they be able to do this? I'm beginning to doubt it.
Anyone today can send a program to a friend via email. Just make it an attachment. True, you may be limited by program size. But is this an insurmountable problem?
When we first started on the Internet, we thought that information products were the best products to sell. Now it appears that all they may be used for is to help sell other products or services. The free flow of information is transforming advertising. Instead of being manipulative, ads are becoming informative.
There is a great deal of discussion about targeted advertising. What is the best way to target? By supplying information that you know will be helpful. In other words, by trying to help your prospect learn whatever HE is interested in learning.
Yes, information wants to be FREE. Use information to help your prospect learn. This is the developing approach to advertising.
