(strategically) Free!

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, has made his new book Free available on Scribd for free! All this to prove "that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them" (book description provided by publisher). Talk about putting your profit where your mouth is, er something.

Some notable authors and critics find less generosity than gimmick: Malcolm Gladwell, writing for the New Yorker, and Richard Curtis, writing for E-Reads Publishing in the 21st Century, are worth considering.

Billboard for free? Tell me more!

Billboard is showing music biz folks (and music fans) some love. They just relaunched Billboard.com with loads of new social applications/features! But the best news is that they've freed up some of the chart data previously only available to subscribers.

MediaWeek reports: "One of the big distinguishers Billboard expects to have in the crowded music space is its ability to free the decades of chart data to a consumer audience. For the first time, the Hot 100 chart will be freely available for all 100 listings." Yet another online source of quality information--enjoy!