For now, the free app is ad-supported, but a version without ads will be available soon for those who would prefer a cleaner experience.

Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka told VentureBeat in an interview that Angry Birds is used more than 65 million minutes per day on the iPhone (paid app). Now that it's on Android, Vesterbacka predicts the game will soon be used 100 million minutes per day.

GetJar has the exclusive launch for now - the game will be featured on its site alone for the first 24 hours before hitting the Android Market. This promotion will be a major boost for the large cross-platform app store, not yet a household name. GetJar has been aiming to change that lately with new initiatives that involve giving away free applications to GetJar visitors.

According to Vesterbacka, GetJar was an obvious choice for its launch. "GetJar's global reach and popularity as well as their unique App It! download service ensures that we reach a massive audience of fanatically loyal Angry Birds addicts," he explained. "The unique App It! link means we can also cross promote our Symbian and Android versions without the need to send folks to multiple places to get their favorite game."

So how can you get your hands on a free copy of Angry Birds today?

You can either go to the GetJar download page or, from your mobile phone browser, head to m.getjar.com...that is, If the websites can stay up!

1. Photofiltre is a desktop app with a UI reminiscent of Photoshop and a pared-down set of functions. This app eliminates layers and some user controls for certain tools but leaves plenty of room to play with color, saturation, and effects.

The toolbar allows for certain types of painting and selection, but basically, users are limited to making whole-image adjustments.

Has: Levels, lots of color correction and highlight/shadow options, clone stamp

Lacks: Layers, settings and controls for certain tools

If Photoshop Is a Ten: Photofiltre is a 5.

2. Paint.NET is a fascinating desktop app we just found out about through reader recommendations. And our readers were completely right. We found that this app, even though it required a multi-step download process, just might be able to replace Photoshop entirely for many users. We were able to adjust layer blend modes and opacities, create new gradient layers, apply and adjust a bevy of effects and filters, and just about everything an average, non-professional Photoshop user would do.

The toolbar and palettes were familiar, and although some of the breadth and scope of the features felt a little shallow, there's a lot that can be done with this tool.

Has: Layers, full toolbar, levels, curves

Lacks: Sophisticated color correction/alteration, paintbrush, and selection tools; adjustment layers

If Photoshop Is a Ten: Paint.NET is an 8.

3. The GIMP is touted by many as the be-all, end-all of image editing apps. This open-source, desktop-based piece of work has been part of amateur designers' stable of resources for a long time and retains a solid place among Photoshop's free competitors.

All things being equal, there's not a lot we can say to criticize GIMP. As an open source app, it is subject to continuous rounds of improvement; there is no free app that will duplicate the Photoshop experience as well as GIMP will.

Has: Lighting effects, a full paintbrush tool set, pen tool path selection, layer masks

Lacks: Adjustment layers, some effects previews, layer effects

If Photoshop Is a Ten: GIMP is an 11, because it gives users 90 percent of Photoshop's functionality at zero percent of its cost.

4. Aviary is the hot new kid on the block when it comes to image editors. The four-app suite is a web-based beauty that allows for separate functions for images, vector graphics, design work, and more. Photos can be imported from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and a number of other sites.

And although having separate apps for different levels of control and execution is the perfect way to scale the overall functionality for different user groups, we found having to switch back and forth between, for example, the Peacock effects editor and the Phoenix image editor, was disconcerting. And Peacock itself is a radical departure from current image editing paradigms, confusing in a way that is only rivaled by Yahoo! Pipes and tax documents. Instead of launching themselves and their work right into the UI, users will have to spend some time in tutorials and make an initial investment before they see a payoff in their results.

Has: Mask layers, layer blend modes, toolbar, selection modification, layer filters, keyboard shortcuts

Lacks: Previews of many filters/effects, controls for customizing effects, continuity and integration between apps

If Photoshop Is a Ten: Aviary Phoenix is a 7; with Aviary Peacock, it's a 2-9, just depending on how much time you want to spend on tutorials.

5. Splashup is just about as good as it gets. Although it lacks a few crucial tools, it makes up for it all by delivering a beautiful knockoff of the Photoshop interface. It actually looks - dare we say it? - a lot sexier than Photoshop. The app also allows for easy importing of photos stored on social sites such as Facebook, Flickr, and more.

Without so much as registering an account, users are taken immediately to a pared-down, in-browser PS with an abbreviated but adequate set of capabilities. This is the Photoshop Lite we've all been asking for all these years. The tools presented allow for just enough control and just enough subtlety to create professional-looking results:

Has: Layers with effects and blend mode/opacity options and a full, floating toolbar

Lacks: Curves, levels, vibrance, and a slew of the less-used Photoshop features

If Photoshop Is a Ten: Splashup is an 8.

6. Users must register accounts to use flauntR app suite. This Flash-based, in-browser app is definitely one of the best-looking of the bunch, but it lacks the all-important layers that take the amateurish edge off an edited image. Without layers, the final results will always look just a little bit ham-fisted. Nevertheless, flauntR gives users a quick, effective way to adjust images and apply effects.

Images from Flickr, Facebook, and other sites can be pulled into the editor, as well. In addition to offering print services through the printR app, the mobilR app also allows for creating background images for several mobile devices, a cool and unique offering. The profilR moreover allows for the automatic creation of appropriately dimensioned avatars for various social network profiles.

Our finished product isn't something we're terribly proud of, and we certainly wouldn't call the result "professional," but the app was quick and simple to use:

Has: Curves, a range of photo filters and effects, one-click palette adjustments, and a decent set of color adjustment tools

Lacks: The ability to change settings and strengths of many effects, and, as aforementioned, layers

If Photoshop Is a Ten: flauntR is a 4.

7. FotoFlexer is a convenient, quick, in-browser editor with lots of great features. It's also got an API, which we find fascinating.

While we weren't able to experience the levels of magic we would have liked (we couldn't create new layers not based on existing images, for example), we did get to jerry rig a few cool effects and create an image that looks 'Shopped enough.

Users can register accounts to store their edited images on the site, and they can also pull photos in from Flickr, Facebook, and similar social sites.

Has: Equivalents of Curves, Pen selection, Magic Wand, Layers, Liquify, and a ton of easy-to-use filters

Lacks: Full-featured opacity settings and blend modes, a Paintbrush equivalent

If Photoshop Is a Ten: FotoFlexer is a 5.

There are quite a few apps we left out of this list; which ones are your favorites to use? If we missed anything crucial, please be sure to let us know in the comments.

Readers have the money that makes all of this happen, so they will, eventually, get what they want, which is:

• Broad selection of titles,
• Choice of format and device,
• Fast delivery,
• Low prices,
• Freemium model.

In other words, readers will be able to order any book in the universe and have it sent to them in print wherever they want or sent digitally to whatever device they have. Readers have grown accustomed to getting their online content for free, so they will expect to get at least a degraded experience via the regular browser (the "free" in freemium).

This will take a while to play out. We live in a world today of bilateral negotiations, so different titles are available for different devices and in different bookstores. But play out it will. This is the logic of digitization. Until we reach that stage, plenty of entrepreneurial opportunities will exist to meet those reader demands.

Readers will pay more for print. They will understand that it costs more. Some readers will resist e-books as long as they live. Others will be selective, choosing print for certain titles and situations and digital for others.

Will Books Be Free?

Here is my free review of my free copy of "Free."

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, recently came out with the book "Free: The Future of a Radical Price." So the question of whether books will be free in the future is a natural one to ask. The short answer is, No. If books became free, authors would stop writing, printers would stop printing, and electronics factories would stop churning out e-book readers. In other words, there would be nothing to read... except:

• Free copies given to reviewers to generate free reviews. I got a free copy of "Free" when I attended Wired's "Disruptive by Design" conference. But the practice of giving away free copies to reviewers has been happening since publishing began.
• Free excerpts and abstracts online. Using free content to entice you to a paid version will continue. Freemium models will be the norm. People with more time than money will take the free version online through their browser, even if the paid print version or e-book is a much better experience. This is nothing new, either: people with more time than money already get free books through their local library. Enabling people with more time than money to read for free is a good thing.
• Promotional publishing. Traditional brochures have lost all credibility and value in this online world. And everyone has a blog; blogs are no longer differentiators. So, published books are the new blogs. Consultants can charge more if they have a book published. To be credible, the book would need a published price (preferably a high one), but all potential clients would get one for free. This is just an extension of blogging as an attention-getting tool.
• Passion publishing. This has been called "vanity publishing" in the industry. This is a pejorative term that can be translated as, "This is not real publishing because no one is paying for it." If the author's passion relates to a cause, funding may come from a non-profit foundation. But volume will accumulate from simple books such as your family memoir or a cookbook inspired by your vacation in Tuscany. Again, this is not much different from spending time on a blog. Free books may come with advertising, like blogs.

How much does Chris Anderson's "Free" book cost on Amazon? List price: $26.99, discounted to $16.19. Not free.

Authors

What about people who harbor a desire to live off of their writing? After all, most writers write because they couldn't imagine not doing it. It is not a profession in the normal sense. They feel compelled to write in the same way that painters feel compelled to paint and musicians are driven to create music. But they have to eat and pay the rent, too.

Intermediaries who mistake that urge to write as a willingness to be exploited will get their heads handed to to them. In a free market, intermediaries are always replaceable, but we need both our authors and readers to always remain motivated.

We are seeing today the early phase of intensified competition in book publishing, as is happening in other industries affected by digitization. Competition will mean, first, more choice and lower prices for readers and, secondly, a bigger share of the pie for authors.

Specifically, we expect to see the following:

1. The end of advances. The irony is that the authors who really need advances, the new ones scraping by on Ramen noodles, cannot get them. Meanwhile authors who don't need them, the ones living the high life off of previous royalties or whatever made them famous enough to get an advance, are showered with ridiculous advances at the end of bidding wars between big publishers. Authors will write without advances. Unlike movies, books are relatively cheap to create. In the digitized world of e-books and print on demand, authors get paid as soon as someone buys the first copy. The lack of an advance will be compensated for by a bigger share of the revenue pie.
2. Authors getting a bigger share of the pie. It makes no sense for authors to get only 10% in a digitized world. We expect this to grow from 10% to 30% or more. Digitization takes most of the costs out of the supply chain. So, unless an intermediary such as Amazon charges monopoly-like rents, authors will get a bigger share. Amazon has amazing power today and will squeeze everyone in the supply chain. But new competition will emerge (we'll look at this later), and keeping authors happy is critical to the success of publishers. Authors are like software developers, not powerful individually but incredibly powerful en masse (and just as ornery!). Authors will need a bigger share also because prices will be coming down. But the drop in price, coupled with globalization, will open up new markets in which to sell books and therefore generate more revenue.
3. Authors creating the finished product. Today, authors write and publishers look after the cover art and editing. If authors were to get 30% or more, they would have to take on these two other jobs. But in a world of desktop publishing tools and social networks to organize work and editing, this will not be hard.
4. Online marketing replacing book tours. It is the bane of the author's life. The book tour is wonderful the first time: "Wow, I am a real author now." But this is not the same as musicians going on tour. Musicians are performing their job in its natural environment during live shows; not true of authors reflecting on their books on stage. There are many and much better ways to promote books online.

The future of authors can be summed up, then, as: do more of the work and get a bigger percentage of the retail price, which will be lower.

Printers

Printers. Who loves you, baby! Predicting the decline of the printing industry is easy, but hopeful signs exist:

• Print on demand will significantly increase the types of books that can get printed.
• Lower prices, resulting from costs eliminated from the supply chain, will increase demand.
• Globalization will increase demand.

It will be interesting to see how digital printing technology, the fundamental driver of print on demand, changes the role of printing over time. Today, we have two extremes:

1. Mass-scale printers, centrally located. We even saw printing move offshore, where labor is cheaper. But this will likely reverse in a print-on-demand world, where immediacy and delivery costs are critical: printing will be done closer to the consumer.
2. Do-it-yourself printing, also known as using the printer in your home or office. Do-it-yourself printing is both expensive (those ink cartridge costs really add up) and a hassle.

Digital printing could quite possibly move to a hyper-local network model. Orders would be automatically routed to the printer closest to the consumer. The already existing infrastructure of small-scale local print shops would welcome this model. The book would then be delivered (quickly and cheaply) to a local retailer or the consumer's home or office. Perhaps the printer would be located in the back office of the retailer?

This fits the trend on the Internet of everything moving towards the edge. It is also an environmentally friendly model, reducing emissions from delivery trucks.

The model won't really help existing large-scale, centralized printers, though.

Publishers

NYMag has a very good article on how big old publishers are faring. It is not a happy tale. It illustrates once again the perils of financially engineered consolidation (think banks and car companies). Book publishing used to be a business in which small firms, run by passionate editors, found great authors and developed personal relationships with them. Occasionally, they struck it rich when one of their authors "caught fire" with the reading public.

Today feels like the calm before the storm. Publishers are worrying about the recession. That is a small wave and will soon pass. But we won't be returning to normal when GDP growth resumes. The three big digitization waves -- Google Book Search, e-books, and print on demand -- will have a far bigger and more lasting impact.

Publishers did quite well during the first phase, when retailers got "Amazoned." They sold more of their back catalog (i.e. they enjoyed the long tail).

On the surface, all is well with the Kindle. Publishers get the same percentage from an e-book that they get when a retailer sells a print version of the book, and their costs are lower. Amazon is playing along. But when it gets more traction, it will squeeze.

Publishers have to figure out not so much how to negotiate with Amazon (competition from other consumer electronic devices will take care of that), but how to remain relevant to authors. Even saying this seems contrarian. Publishers have had all the power till now. The bane of an author's life has been to find a publisher. Plastering the wall with rejection letters and recounting tales of arrogant editors are rites of passage for every author.

Unbundling Publishers

But what services exactly do publishers provide to authors? Let's disassemble the package:

1. Advances. Newbies don't get them, and the rest don't need them.
2. Editing. Do you have a social network that could give you constructive criticism?
3. Cover design. Yes, a great one can make a book. But how much do graphic designers charge?
4. ISBN. Here is an interesting one. To be a publisher, you need international standard book numbers (ISBNs). This is actually what defines you as a publisher. An ISBN is a 13-digit number that uniquely identifies a book or book-like product that is published internationally (read more about it here). The application process that takes about 15 days and costs about $250 for 10 titles.
5. Marketing. Some authors will say, "What marketing?" For mega-star authors, publishers have to spend a ton on marketing to recoup their advance. Authors who don't get advances won't expect much marketing and will end up doing a lot of the work themselves, which wouldn't be so bad if they were getting 30%, rather than 10%.
6. Brand. An author may realistically know that the publisher won't do much marketing and yet still want a brand-name publisher. The reason is partly to feel good: "Wow, I am a real author now." But it is also a rational calculation. Which is better, selling 100 books and keeping 30% or selling 300 books and keep 10%? That's right: it is about the same. Does a brand-name publisher increase sales three times?
7. Retailer shelf-space. Publishers take a big risk on their "sale or return" policy with major retailers. So, you might get retail shelf space, but that is changing, as we will see below.
8. Amazon "shelf space". This is unlimited, so your publisher will get you in here. But any publisher will get its authors in there. Technically, any entity with an ISBN is a publisher.

If any entity with an ISBN is a publisher, then authors could act as their own publishers. Or we could see cooperative publishers emerge. Or alternative publishers, such as indie and network publishers, could grow stronger.

But let's consider first how book retailing might evolve.

Retailers

Here is a bookstore owner's nightmare. Customer walks in; browses around; has grand old time in this temple of knowledge; peruses a book that costs $27; takes out Kindle and orders it for $17, right there in front of your nose, using your wi-fi connection. Aaagh!

You wake up sweating at 3:00 in the morning.

Have you noticed all of those best-seller books stacked up at the front of your local bookstore? Did the retailer buy them hoping to sell them all? Of course not. They are relying on a variant of the age-old practice of "sale or return." Publisher have agreed to take back unsold ones for credit. As this article on Bloomberg states:

"Returns date back to the Depression, when publishers implemented the practice as a way to ensure that bookstores would continue stocking new books."

Now that we are in a major recession, or micro-depression, or whatever we're calling it these days, surely this practice will continue. Well, probably not. Digitization, whether via e-book or print on demand, makes it unnecessary. And publishers simply cannot sustain it. Approximately 25% of their books are being returned. Think of what that does to their profit margins.

How can retailers survive if they have to decide what to buy based on their forecast of what will sell? The answer is, they can't. No one can forecast fickle consumer taste. With retailer's profit margins being what they are, one small error could lead to an operation's failure.

But they have to stock their shelves with something, right?

Not necessarily. Have you noticed that bookstores are becoming more like coffee shops and coffee shops are becoming more like bookstores? And that both have wi-fi?

Retail bookstores might look more like community hang-out spots in future, with the following:

• Good (but expensive) coffee and snacks,
• Free wi-fi,
• A few best-selling books and DVDs (under the sale or return policy),
• A way for patrons to order any book in the universe, while taking a cut of the transaction.

This last possibility is not hard to imagine. The customer could have the book delivered to the bookstore if they will be passing by again soon or, for a little extra (plus guilt for the bigger carbon footprint), their home.

These coffee shop/bookstores could even host virtual "Meet the author" sessions on a big screen, with back-channel chats going on via Twitter. And they could host book clubs for both face-to-face meetings and online gatherings.

If the "local printer" model becomes a reality, book delivery would be immediate. We can even imagine digital printers setting up shop in the back of coffee shop/bookstores?

That sounds like fun for readers, authors, and store owners. But for students and the unemployed, the walk to the local library seems all the shorter.

And what about big-box bookstores in malls? Nope. Sell your commercial real estate and big-box retailer stock. That will get ugly.

The E-Book Device War

Today, the Kindle rules, just as the iPhone and iPod have beaten the devices in their product classes. The Kindle is simply better for readers than Sony's device. At least, most people think so, and that is what matters.

This dominance is threatened from two directions:

1. The Android model. Google has not revealed its long-term plans related to book publishing, but being Google's, its plans will be ambitious and centered on driving traffic to vendors through free content. Because e-book readers are similar as consumer devices to smartphones, Google will likely use the Android platform as leverage to bring all consumer device manufacturers who want a piece of the action on board. Sony and Google are already working together.
2. The offline/online combo model. We tend to think of book reading as a solitary activity, but that is not how it started, and it is not how you started reading (if you were read to by your parents). The popularity of book clubs proves that it can be a great social activity. It is not hard to imagine some entrepreneur mixing online and offline to create a great social experience, and monetizing it with book purchases. There is no cost to creating the venue for that social experience, but it may be the differentiator.

Network Indie Publishing Model

The traditional publishing industry refers to its alternatives in pejorative terms, such "self-publishing" and "vanity publishing." We prefer indie publishing. Indie movies bypass the big Hollywood studios. Indie music bypasses the big record labels. And indie books bypass the big publishers. We look at how this could play out in more detail later.

Indie publishers already exist, and we may see a lot more. With digitization, the barriers to entry come crashing down. In fact, highly trafficked niche websites could become publishers, because:

• They draw traffic, which they could use to market books,
• Their brands are respected, at least within their niches.

A website about food could sell cookery books, a site about cars could sell books about cars, and so on. The steps are relatively simple: get an ISBN, make a deal with a print-on-demand vendor, make a deal with Amazon and Sony, and you're in business. Last but not least, choose good authors.

When all you need is an ISBN to become a publisher and earn 30% or more, why make do earning only 4% to 10% as an Amazon affiliate.

In this new world, we could see the pie fairly evenly divided in three:

• Author: one-third,
• Publisher, who also creates traffic and demand through their website: one-third,
• Printer or e-book service: one-third.

Mike Masnick followed on TechDirt with an insightful post in which he attributes some of Gladwell's confusion to the way that Anderson wrote the book. Masnick says that the book does not provide enough details on the mechanics and applications of Free. (I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on that.) Fred Wilson joined the conversation with a sharply delivered post on Freemium and Freeconomics. He gives examples of the kinds of Free that actually work.

So, as Albert Wenger wrote recently, there is "continuous confusion about free."

This is because the topic is broad, and everyone is taking a different angle. In this post, we will break down Free into three separate classes: the kind that actually works, another that struggles, and the last that can be dangerous.

Freemium: When Free Really Works

Fred Wilson nails it on the head when he identifies the two instances when Free actually works. The first instance is the service or software that offers a free trial and then converts users into paying customers. There are different flavors of this approach, the most popular being, give the basic version for free and charge for the advanced version.

An early example of this model was online email, where you got a certain amount of storage for free and had to pay for more (see more about this, though, in the section on when Free is dangerous). Other examples in this category include project management software, like 37signals, and online photo collections, like Flickr.

The second instance that Wilson identifies is the consumer service that manages to build a massive audience. Citing Facebook as an example, Wilson says, "Free gets you to a place where you can ask to get paid." He argues that because Facebook has managed to amass such a valuable asset, it is able to monetize in any number of ways. Citing Business Insider, he lists Facebook's revenue:

• $125 million from brand ads,
• $150 million from its ad deal with Microsoft,
• $75 million from virtual goods,
• $200 million from self-service ads.

Interesting that all but one revenue source here (the virtual goods) is advertising. The only thing that consumers of this Free service were willing to pay for was a supplemental service in the form of virtual goods.

In any case, the main point is that, given a truly massive audience, monetization opportunities present themselves, at the very least in the form of advertising.

Old Media: When Free Cries

It is ironic that the very thing that makes large consumer services successful also makes old media cry. Online advertising does not seem able to deliver the kind of revenue that old-fashioned subscription services did. The culprit? A drastic drop in the cost of publishing, and complete destruction of barriers to entry. Even at the turn of the century, publishing was a closed game. Today, anyone can be a publisher, thanks to the read/write Web (no pun intended).

What really angered Gladwell was Anderson's verdict on journalists. Gladwell writes:

"It is not entirely clear what distinction is being marked between 'paying people to get other people to write' and paying people to write. If you can afford to pay someone to get other people to write, why can't you pay people to write? It would be nice to know, as well, just how a business goes about reorganizing itself around getting people to work for 'non-monetary rewards.' Does he mean that the New York Times should be staffed by volunteers, like Meals on Wheels?"

While this question is valid, it misses the point. It does not matter whether journalism should be free or not. The issue is that those old media profit margins are nowhere to be found anymore. And so the money dissipates, the way that the big VC money from the '90s can no longer be deployed in tech.

To answer Gladwell's question, journalists will still get paid, but they will get paid to work at smaller outfits, like ReadWriteWeb.

Free, abundant content and more nimble, agile news sources from the blogosphere and Twitter are striking a deadly blow to old media. Old media cries because it can't figure out how exactly to remain the way it was. Ultimately, it can't.

Monopoly: When Free Bites

Most of the discussion around Free focuses on the freemium model and media. When we wrote about Free earlier, we focused on a different side of it: how Free can be dangerous.

The problem is that large companies can exploit Free in a way that is essentially monopolistic. A large company could enter a brand new market to undermine competition. Consider Google Docs, a completely free consumer product that serves no ads and competes with Microsoft Office. A subtler example is Gmail, which does display ads (even if they don't attract many clicks) and has limited storage, but the limit is so high (2.5 GB) that the product is essentially free.

Free can also be used to kill off competition and create a barrier to entry. IBM was the main player behind the open-source project called Eclipse, a platform for building software applications. Seemingly innocent and even good for the world, the initiative managed to kill off all of the small and mid-sized players in the market within five years. In doing so, it killed innovation and became the de facto tool for building Java applications.

When I spoke about the danger of Free during a recent summit on Freeconomics, I brought up a point that did not seem to resonate with the audience. I wondered, what are the moral implications of Free, and what specific impact does Free have on children? For example, what is it like to grow up in a world in which most software is Free? Does Free create a sense of entitlement? Does it lead people to wonder why they should pay for anything at all? Where do we draw the line on what should and should not be free? These questions are not simple and are certainly far from being answered.

Conclusion

Clearly, Free and Freeconomics are broad and complex topics. No single post could begin to address all of the issues involved. Anderson's book is timely and important. While we need to be careful, Free is also inevitable. Not only is it our future, it is already our present. So we need to understand what it is and what impact it has on the Internet, our lives, and our children.

The debate that is unfolding around Free is fascinating to follow and even more fascinating to participate in. So join the conversation with your posts, comments, and tweets!

The platform, inspired by Creative Commons and the notion of open software, is a collaborative effort between WFMU and others, including KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room, and CASH Music, all of whom work to curate the music made available on the site. Instead of fearing free downloads (as the music industry typically does), the belief here is that providing free downloads will actually encourage people to purchase music. Although all the tracks on the site are free, there are links that point to full album downloads which are not. Also, FMA users have the option of "tipping" an artist when they find something they like by sending money to the artist's PayPal account.

Obviously, the FMA is not a resource where you're going to find the latest Top 40 artists or classic tunes you know and love. This is because - let's face it - by the time you've heard of a band, someone has spent a lot of money making sure you did so. In other words, if you're not interested in seeking out new music, the FMA is not the place for you. For others, however, the site will be a treasure trove of discovery. You can delve into genres and sub-genres you may have never even heard of (Sludge? Glitch? Wow, I feel old now.)

To find good tunes to download, you can choose to browse by curator or genre using links at the top of the homepage. Next to each track is a down arrow button which saves the MP3 file to your computer. You don't have to register to download files, but if you want to take advantage of the site's social features, you do. Registered users can create friend lists, leave comments, become fans of the content, write blog posts, and create mixes.

If you're not sure where to get started on the FMA, WFMU's sample collections (Volume 1 and Volume 2) are good resources.

The Free Music Archive is in Beta right now and they promise that more features are coming in the future.

The program launched over the weekend through via this lighthearted post over on TypePad.com which reminds you that "Tumblr...will not pay your bills." According to the company, they've already seen hundreds of journalists signing up to participate.

As detailed in the TypePad blog post, the bailout program includes the following, a dollar value of at least $150 per year (the price of the TypePad service alone), if not more :

A free TypePad Pro blog account, the same service that powers many big-name media blogs. It includes professional support so Six Apart will answer any questions you have.

The blog is enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising program. These are display ads that pay a more than Google text ads, and bloggers get to keep the revenue.

Six Apart will promote the new site on Blogs.com, a directory of the best in blogs. Blogs.com will be a way for all of the bloggers peers in the Journalist Bailout Program to cross-promote and share traffic for their independent sites.

Lots more. Six Apart can also introduce you to their VIP program to help drive traffic to the site, help connect blogs to LinkedIn profiles, make it easy to manage your comments from an iPhone, and even show you how to automatically promote posts to your Facebook friends

There are no rules on how the blog must be used. Journalists can use the blog showcase their best work, launch something new, or hang onto the site, you know, "just in case."

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

We're in the midst of a great upheaval. The internet is impacting the business models of so many established ventures. Newspapers and magazines aren't the only industries affected by any means. The internet has left nothing untouched, whether music, video, news, sports, communication, marketing, advertsing and more, those wishing to stave off its force of change are simply trying to outswim a tidal wave.

What's better for those being impacted is to be prepared and thinking ahead for the future - what is Plan B? As we mentioned earlier this week, not everyone sees the death of the journalism ahead - media mogul Rupert Murdoch, for example, sees opportunity.

And if you think successful journalism can only come on the platform of old media, you're wrong. Look around. So many journalists are now getting into blogging, but one of our newest favs that proves the potential success of the model is TechFlash, home to John Cook and Todd Bishop, both of whom left their respected papers and struck out on their own to deliver quality tech news in readable format without all the bias, backstabbing, and petty quarrels the tech "blogosphere" seems to get itself involved in from time to time.

Journalists may also want to keep in mind Arianna Huffington's recent, but vague, promise to begin funding investigative journalism through her incredibly successful The Huffington Post site, one of the most recognizable and read blogs out there.

So journalists, get your platforms ready...there's no better time than now and no better price than free.

Note: Six Apart's Movable Type weblogging platform is what powers our blog here at ReadWriteWeb.

Judging from the change in business models, however, it would seem that Calgoo couldn't attract enough paying users. It's interesting that Calgoo couldn't make its 'freemium' model of free basic services and paid advanced feature work.

According to Calgoo, it is making its products available for free in order to "move to in-calendar advertising business models." While Calgoo hasn't outlined what these in-calendar ads would look like, this move is also consistent with the overall trend on the web towards advertising financed products.

As Svetlana Gladkova also points out in this context, users have simply become so accustomed to not paying for anything on the web that even charging for premium features is becoming very difficult for some companies. Calgoo must have surely felt the same pressure. In the short run, this is probably to the users' advantage.

• What process should companies use to create social strategies?
• What business objectives can be achieved with Web 2.0 technologies?
• How should you get started?

Going through the sign-up form, it's obvious that this seminar is aimed at business and not just the casual user, as the questions do pertain to your industry, job role, etc., but it definitely sounded too interesting to pass up. The webinar is today at 11 ET/8 PT and you can sign up here.

The new album, which has ten tracks and clocks in at 43:45, is release under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share alike license. The band encourages downloaders to "remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc."

This begs two questions: 1. Just how many new albums does NIN have? and 2. Should all artists give away their music for free?

True Fans Theory at Work

What Reznor has done with Nine Inch Nails over the past two months is confirmation of Kevin Kelly's "true fans" theory, on a much larger scale. The theory basically states that any artist can make a living if he or she can cultivate 1,000 "true fans" -- people who will support anything the artist does. The actual number of true fans necessary to make a living will vary depending on the artist and the economics of what he or she produces.

While it is hard to find examples of this in the long tail, we are beginning to see it play out with more and more major label artists. Because Trent Reznor's true fans came through for him for the Ghosts release in March, he was able to release The Slip for free in May. At this point Reznor doesn't have to make money selling albums en masse -- his true fans will still buy the CD and and vinyl copies even though the download is free, they'll still come to his concerts and buy t-shirts and posters.

As we've pointed out in the past, this is also essentially the same theory employed by music startup Sellaband (our coverage), which asks music acts to generate $50,000 from "believers" -- usually in the form of $10 donations from 5,000 true fans. Any band that reaches that goal gets studio time to record a full album and distribution via the site and other retail channels.

However, it is still not clear whether Reznor's success can be duplicated by long tail artists. Clearly, cultivating enough die hard fans to make a living, especially while giving away your core product for free, is not easy. For Reznor it took 20 years and he had the backing of major labels along the way (Reznor's Nothing Records is owned by Interscope, which is in turn owned by Universal Music Group).

"If success for independent artists requires the cultivation of 'true fans' then awareness is paramount," we said in a March post that argued for the positive effect that putting music out for free into viral distribution channels like social networks can have for artists. But for independent artists who don't have major label backing, free might be a Catch-22. Give away tracks to build awareness and cultivate true fans, but try not to cultivate fans who expect everything to be free forever.

It is no surprise that book publishers are trying to find new ways to appeal to readers. We noted in March that offline reading of books is on the decline. Though new forms of book consumption have begun to appear -- such as Amazon's wildly popular Kindle eBook reader -- "free" is an enticing way to get people acclimated to them and a way for publishers to make readers aware of a specific author, title, series, or genre.

Del Ray is taking a page from the music industry by promoting its new Star Wars book via an online giveaway. We wrote a couple of months ago that here is a huge value in awareness for artists and publishers, which is what Del Ray is attempting to build in the Star Wars book brand. The music doppelganger to this marketing ploy is R.E.M. and Pennywise -- both of whom made their new albums available to fans for free a couple of weeks prior to launch, and both of whom saw those albums crack the top 15 on the sales charts. However, like those bands, Star Wars also already has brand recognition, so it will be tough to gauge how many sales actually translate from the online promotion.

"This giveaway is a great way to introduce the legions of Star Wars fans to our books," said Deputy Director of Marketing at the Random House Publishing Group, Christine Cabello in a press release. "We also expect that it will build awareness and excitement for the on-sale date of the final book in the series, Invincible."

Will other book publishers follow suit? Will we ever see a "pay-what-you-want" distribution scheme for books?

That's very much like the advice that Marshall Kirkpatrick gave to Reznor writing on this blog in January after Reznor complained about the download-to-pay ratio the pay-if-you-want Saul Williams album that Reznor produced received late last year. "Times are changing and if you can, it's better to work on innovating along with them than it is to make dragging your feet and suing people your business model," advised Kirkpatrick.

At the time, Reznor wrote that he was "disheartened" that just 28,322 of the 154,449 people who downloaded Williams' album chose to pay the $5 for a higher quality copy. At the same time, though, that's nearly as many as who bought Williams' previous traditional CD release in 2004 (which sold 33,897 copies) and far more who are hearing his music -- which could theoretically translate to increased concert ticket and merchandise sales. Further, because by not dealing with a label the artist is likely taking a much larger cut of the download revenue than they would receive of CD sales revenue, Williams probably made more money on fewer transactions this time around.

Clearly, Reznor was not disheartened enough to forgo trying a similar type of release for his own new album. Ghosts I-IV part I is available as a free download on the NIN site, as well as on BitTorrent. The entire album is available as a $5 download, a $10 double CD, a $75 "deluxe" package with CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray copies, and a $300 "ultra-deluxe" edition that also includes vinyl copies and signed giclee art prints. The $5 download can also be had via Amazon -- where the album has quickly shot up to the #1 spot on the sales charts.

The 9-track free edition of the album is licensed under a Creative Commons license and is free for non-commercial use. "We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc." said the band in release notes.

Conclusions

While it is impossible to predict how this release will fare compared with previous traditional NIN releases, that may not be a fair question. The dynamics of the music industry have changed and artists like Reznor and Radiohead are blazing new trails as they attempt to figure out how to best release music under these changing market conditions. If 18.3% of downloaders pay -- as they did for Williams -- then that's probably not a bad number for NIN, who can bet that they'll get far more downloads than Williams (Ghosts is already the most downloaded torrent at The Pirate Bay) and will presumably be pocketing most of the revenue.

What do you think? Is Reznor's release a harbinger of the future of the music industry? Let us know your thoughts on the issue in the comments.

"[...] I disagree that Google got into GMail just to undercut, say, Outlook/Exchange. They profit from "free" email both by directly placing ads and by using the links and keywords in email to boost the effectiveness of their bread-and-butter search. So, their "free" email service buys them page views, a huge marketing channel and rich metadata that keeps them way ahead in search.

Likewise, Flickr/Yahoo gives away free image space to attract 1) a huge community to which they can market stuff, 2) a massive volume of page views (i.e. ad revenue) based on user-generated content, and 3) a fantastic pool of tagged images that Yahoo can serve as search results.

In this freeconomics world, startups still have a chance because startup costs are rock-bottom low. However, it is not enough to build a "killer app". They have to build a "killer honey pot" that uniquely attracts workers/customers that generate the content that both attracts page view "honey" and (virally) more workers/customers.

Is this bad or complex? Not really, just a different skillset. In this "honey pot" world, effective social architecture is more important than sheer quantity of application features. You don't charge (or charge much) for the "application." Instead, you harvest value out of the content/attention of your worker-bee customers."

bee image: bbum

While it is true that people like free stuff and it is true that large companies can afford to give away stuff for free, what is not clear yet is whether freeconomics is a good thing.

Monopolistic Markets: The Tale of GMail

One of the main examples that Chris cites is web mail. Yahoo! had a free version with limited space and charged for extra storage. Then Google came along and made email free along with a ton of extra storage. So some people (albeit mostly early adopters at this point) moved away from Yahoo! and began using GMail. But the trend was apparent, so Yahoo! had no choice but to add more storage and make it all free to stay competitive. Seems like a clever move by Google and a win for the customer. But is this a fair tactic?

The argument that it cost Google nothing to develop and offer GMail is wrong. Likely it costs millions of dollars each year. The fact of the matter is that GMail was offered for free mostly because Google could afford it. This is a standard monopolistic tactic used to enter a new market - drive the price down (in this case to $0) and kill off the competition. Yahoo! was actually first to market and had a perfectly good product with a fair model: they offered a basic product for free and a premium product with more storage for a price. But when Google made its move, Yahoo! could not compete.

Monopolistic Markets: The Tale of DVR

Another example used in the article is that of digital video recording devices (DVR). Comcast gives out DVRs for free, just like cell phone companies give out basic cell phones for free and then make up the money with the service charges. Perhaps DVRs are a bit of a stretch, but this example is very different from GMail. This is a case of something given away for free in order to get the customer to pay for service - and the cost is recovered over time. It is not the same as when a company offers a product for free to enter a new market.

Yet, the other aspect of free is quality. Anyone who owns a Comcast DVR knows that humans have never invented a worse remote control. It is just bad. Even with my masters degree in computer science, it took me a long time to master it. Free is not always good. Sooner, rather than later, free might deliver a punch on quality. If it's free, put less engineers on it. If it's free, then why do we need to fix bugs? It's free - so this is good enough.

Monopolistic Markets: The Tale of the Unfunded Startup

Perhaps the biggest worry of free are startups. To begin with, how do you compete with free? Suppose someone has a great idea for improving web mail. Entering the market is really difficult. A lot of inertia is now behind Google and in the new world of freeconomics, you can no longer compete on price. Not that long ago the concept of better and cheaper allowed startups to make the bet. But now that cheaper has been replaced with free, that axis is shut out.

Even more problematic is funding. How do you fund a startup that a priori can not charge the user? One might argue that we're now living in an ads-only monetization world, which of course we are, but things are not that simple. First, how many startups are actually making money on ads? Sure Google is doing great, but is Yahoo!? We used to live in a world where Flickr could charge $25 per year for premium use. Now we are talking about a world where Flickr has to be completely free to everyone and have unlimited storage to survive. What's the model for ads next to your own pictures?

The entire model sounds broken and certainly venture capitalists are going to be cautious until proven methods of making money arise. This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem, but in the meantime there may be an impact on innovation. If the monetization is difficult and financial upside is unclear, entrepreneurs will think twice about jumping into the game.

Complex Transactions: The Tale of The Middle-Man

Nothing good can come from a monopoly. It smiles at us first by giving a carrot, but the stick is sure to follow. Yet, there is another worrisome aspect about freeconomics - the middle man. To understand the worry, consider any company that makes an ad-supported product. The man in the middle is the ad network. You have the core product that the company makes and you have the audience that is interested in the product, but does not want to pay for it. Here come the ads - a panacea for the problem.

But is it really? We are in an economic downturn and suddenly companies do not want to spend money on advertising. So your business is immediately impacted, even though the demand for your product has not diminished. How strange is that? Even as your customer base grows, you'll still be losing money.

The fundamental problem is that every business needs to now learn the intricacies of advertising. Not only do you need to be good at delivering your core product, but you need to be really good at placing advertising on top it. You need to make the tough choice of using someone else's ads or building your own ad network, which is a costly proposition.

Complex Transactions: The Tale of, well... Complexity

Speaking broadly, freeconomics leads to a family of indirect monetization techniques. Chris cites an example of a European airline that charges people only $20 for the ride. The rest of the money they make up on meals, drinks, priority boarding, credit card handling, advertising revenue, etc. This sounds incredibly complex for both the business and the customer.

The cost of inventing and accounting for all these different small channels of revenue is high. And to the customer it's just a headache. Oh, you mean you actually wanted to sit on this flight instead of standing? That will be an extra $20. What seems to be forgotten is one of the lessons large companies have already learned: you should sell bundles for one price. People want all inclusive, not all excluded.

Conclusion

While we are certainly seeing more and more examples of products being given away for free, it is not necessarily a good thing. There are different aspects and faces of free. The Flickr free, which Fred Wilson calls freemium, is the model where the basic version is free and the premium one costs money. This model is very different from the GMail model where the entire product, with full features, is completely free. The downside of freeconomics is a monopolistic market, with barriers to entry, and little incentive to innovate. In addition the middle-man and transactional complexities are the other side effects of this new economic trend.

Is this good or bad? Please tell us what you think in the comments below.

Image credit: Wired Cover, March 2008

There are millions of Creative Commons photos in flickr's database, but finding the right one can take time. The new Photo Dropper plugin simplifies the process by adding a panel to the "Write Post" screen that allows you to search flickr's database for Creative Commons photos.

After entering in your keyword and clicking "search," the plugin will return photos from flickr matching your search terms. Underneath each photo are four links. Three links, "S", "M", and "L", allow you to post that size photo into your blog. The fourth link will open the flickr page in a new window, so you can double-check the licensing requirements if necessary.

The photo which is placed into your blog automatically has text appended underneath it that says "photo credit" and links to the user who is licensing the photo. The small Creative Commons logo precedes the text as well.

Photo Dropper also offers an option for commercial users. In the Options section, they can check the "commercial" check box to exclude photos whose license contains a non-commercial limitation.

You can download Photo Dropper for free from here.

According to a recent study by Jupiter Research, for each song sold, 100 more were stolen. The study also reported that 94% of online music consumers were unwilling to pay for music. The record labels finally got the hint: the Napster Generation thinks music should be free, and they will find a way to get it for free, despite laws or lawsuits. When the record companies realized all their attempts to make up for lost revenue from CD sales had failed, they knew that they now had no alternative but to offer free music to the online masses.

Enter Qtrax

The Qtrax catalog currently boasts 5,000,000 songs, but has plans to eventually offer over 25 million. This makes Qtrax poised to become the most complete online catalog of no-cost legal downloads anywhere in the world. The site, which will launch in Cannes, France with support from stars like James Blunt and LL Cool J is being heralded as the "death knell for CDs" as well as "a massive challenge to iTunes."

The Good

• Songbird-Like Player: Qtrax users download the Qtrax Player, a program built upon the popular Songbird platform. The player functions as the search engine and player for the tunes but it also provides access to a website filled with artist content, including videos, ringtones, lyrics, album art, and up-to-the-minute artist news.
• You Can Upload Your Music: Qtrax says that its users can upload their own music, including songs bought on iTunes or other services.
• May Include "Grey" Music: Since the service will let users upload their own collections, it's possible that Qtrax will allow the tunes like live recordings or demos. Although details are fuzzy on this, if these rare gems were included, Qtrax would have another big selling point.
• Artists are Compensated: Qtrax works with record labels and publishers, licensing their content for distribution online. when you download and play music, the support of advertisers allows Qtrax to compensate artists for their work, something that doesn't happen when you use illegal P2P networks.
• Safe & Free: They is no cost to download the software, there are no hidden charges, no membership fees, and no per song costs. There's also no adware, spyware, or spoofing.

The Bad

• Songbird-Like Player: It may be cool, but it's also mandatory to use the player. Since the player is where the service displays the ads, you must use it, no getting around it.
• DRM: Despite the recent wave of DRM-free music, Qtrax songs will be wrapped in DRM.
• No Beatles here, either: Some music is still  not cleared by labels for digital distribution, so even though this has industry support, you're not going to find those missing tunes here.
• PC-Only (for now): And by PC, they mean Vista and XP only. The Mac version won't be out until March 18th.
  

The Worst

• QTrax songs can't be played on iPods. They say this may change at a later date, but until then, this will kill the service's potential in a big way.

What it Means

What's most important about Qtrax's launch is the changed mentality of the record labels' vision for the online music marketplace. Having them realize that they must offer free music in order to compete with industry behemoths like iTunes, is a promising step in the right direction.

And free music doesn't have to be the disaster labels have always thought. Says Qtrax chief Allan Klepfisz, "the idea of free music is not so radical. Commercial radio and free-to-air television is paid for by advertisers and available for free to consumers."

Exactly.