Video: Wired editor Chris Anderson on The Colbert Report

July 24, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

chr1saStephen Colbert brought Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson onto the show last night to talk about his new book, Free, the Future of a Radical Price. In the book, Anderson explains how digital distribution enables many products, such as music and movies, to be given away for next to nothing. Rather than try to force customers to pay up, Anderson posits that companies should give away their most popular products for free, and make money by charging for niche content that has a strong appeal to individual customers. VentureBeat already does this, as do most other commercial websites: We give away our blog posts for free, and hope that advertisers will pay us to place ads next to them. VentureBeat also makes money through conferences like MobileBeat, for which our content draws participants and attendees.

Colbert’s welcome: “You are the author of a book called Free, and it costs $26.99. Well done, my man!” If Anderson had his way, the book would be free and he’d make lots of money from public speaking engagements generated by the free book’s wider audience.

Colbert is ruthless in this six-minute interview, but it’s obvious he actually gets the ideas Anderson is hawking. So much so, that he hits at two weak points in Anderson’s vision of a reputation economy: First, mainstream media celebrities like Colbert still have hundreds of times more popular recognition and economic value than even an A-list web celeb like Anderson. Second, the most effective means of monetizing your personal brand is by endorsing products and services. Are you sure you want to use your personal voice to hawk a product you don’t use?

(Disclosure: Paul Boutin is a contributor to Wired. He does not yet write for Free.)

Next Story: ONStor sells for $25M, taking $105M in capital down with it
Previous Story: Palm’s brazen Pre hack back into iTunes

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , ,

Photo of Paul Boutin

About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Chris Anderson's book "Free" is an excellent read and should be required reading for Internet/digital media/e-commerce/software/mobile entrepreneurs.
  • amthees
    Hulu is blocked outside the US. VentureBeat has an audience broader than that, and it would be great if the video interviews could be posted (also) in YouTube or any other service that has more of a global approach. It really sucks to stumble upon something like this at this point in history...