Tonight I’m going to hear Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, speak about his upcoming book, “Free.” In a previous post I presented my position on the culture of free, the gift economy and how I think it’s driving the quality of content and applications towards amateur hour. It will be interesting to hear Chris address web economics and I hope to engage him in a discussion about what this means for the future of web-based entertainment content.

I’m specifically interested in Google and how they’ve enabled the culture of free online. From my perspective, Google is bad for business. Let me qualify that, bad for business-as-usual (added). By offering everything you need on the web for free, Google has effectively put web-based business opportunities on life support. (more…)

Consider this classic riddle from The Hobbit:

This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down.

Despite what your inner Gollum is telling you, the answer to this riddle isn’t time. It’s digital innovation.

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