I just finished Chris Anderson‘s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, and I was honestly a bit underwhelmed by it. Overall, I do think Anderson’s theories, including The Long Tail, have some merit, but the theories aren’t 100% reliable.What sort of business can survive by offering all of its products for free all of the time? Is that really a viable business model?

Anderson himself even alludes that free cannot be the only option in concluding the book with: “Web entrepreneurs have to invent not just products that people love but also those that they will pay for. Free may be the best price, but it can’t be the only one.”

However, I did think that one of the best parts of Anderson’s new book is an appendix: Fifty Business Models Build on Free. While Free may not work for every business, in today’s digital world, free, in some manner, may need to be a major component in pricing and marketing strategy. While that’s not a new concept (free trials have been around forever), it can be difficult to creatively determine a way to work a free model into your business model. This list provides a starting point for that.

Some ideas from the list include:

read more How Can a Free Business Model Work?

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