Zero Price?

Blogger charged us nothing for setting up this blog. There are no hosting fees associated with making the blog available on a continuing basis. The price Blogger receives from blogging customers - zero. How do business models like this work? Should we expect to see more of this approach?

Here's a very interesting article by Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail. He discusses business models like Blogger's and argues that we will be seeing much more business conducted this way in the future.

In our text, we discuss cases of "Barbie Doll marketing" (you give away the dolls and sell dresses and other accessories at high markups). Examples include printers (low markup) with toner (high markup) and razor blades and razors. Anderson argues that products priced at or near zero are "the future of business" and discusses other ways that business can capture revenue from customers receiving free products (like selling advertising on web sites).