Sunday, September 20

Book Review: Free

Book Cover
I downloaded Free on my Kindle because, well, it was free. I hadn't heard of the author before, nor any of his prior books, but I saw a promotional message somewhere - I don't even recall where - noting that Amazon was letting you download the book for free, so I did. And, I read it. And, it's good.

What's it all about? Well as the title might have hinted, it's about giving things away for free, and how that's a viable business. Sure, it's a little more complicated in that, but the book does a good job of explaining how Google gives away all it's services for free but still makes a metric butt-load of money, how companies like PosgreSQL give their database away for free and charge for premium reliable on-call support, how free is killing some industries (recording industry, newspapers) but uplifting others (iTunes, Craig's List).

I'm jotting down this review from a slightly stale memory, so I'm only scratching the surface of the topics covered. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy - a free one if you can find it, of course. I'll be considering the author's other books for my reading list now, which is yet another way free can make you (or him in this case) money.