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Chris Anderson's new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (available for free in text form and as an audio book), is stirring controversy and a spicy conversation around the blogosphere. The current wave of discussion started with a critical review by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. In his review, Gladwell defends journalism and goes negative on "Free." Seth Godin, who till then had stayed out of the debate, penned an instantly classic Godin post titled "Malcolm is wrong."

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.

In our post Beware of Freeconomics, Alex Iskold explained why the 'free' economy proposed by Wired's Chris Anderson may not be a bed of roses. Commenter SJones had an interesting 'bee' metaphor that furthered the discussion. "It is not enough to build a killer app", said SJones, "they [startups] have to build a killer honey pot." Read on to find out what that means! We love a good metaphor here at RWW, so congratulations SJones, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Amazon WishList Widget.