COMING SOON: The 8 models of news operations that I identified and mentioned at the Chicago Journalism Townhall on Feb. 22.

Here is a collection of what I’ve written and posted about “freeconomics” or the economics of abundance, when some products cost approaches zero, and making money off the “long-tail” becomes possible. Economies of scale, which favored consolidation and conglomeration, won’t necessarily be the ones that are effective in economic situations in a post-scarcity century.
From the “best of currentbuzz.org.”

From Cory Doctorow:

But just because an industry is socially worthy, it doesn’t follow that it is commercially viable. Today, besides newspapers, three other media are thrashing over their futures in a networked world, and as with newspapers, the rhetoric is mostly of the nonproductive “But I like it!” and “It’s good for society!” variety, with not enough thought given to whether these media are commercially viable in the Internet age.

via Internet Evolution – The Big Report – Media-Morphosis: How the Internet Will Devour, Transform, or Destroy Your Favorite Medium.

Cory Doctorow starts out with “Let me start by saying I like newspapers…” The economics of abundance, our model in the 21st century, often called “freeconomics,” or the “Long-tail” is going to disrupt all of our systems. There will be winners. There will be news, music, and writing, but who makes money on it, and how this stuff is marketed has already changed, though there are industries that are pretty much dead men walking out there now.