FREE

The concept of FREE has grown from a simple marketing gimmick to a full-fledged economy. In the gaming industry, the fastest growing segments are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try multiplayer online games. Google offers almost everything for free to its customers, from Google Earth to Picasa. Free newspapers give you news content for free on the morning train or in the lunch bar. Every day we are consumers in the free economy.

In more and more industries, the traditional Product Sales, Service Sales, Experience Sales business models are disrupted and replaced by free business models where the initial transaction becomes free, and companies earn money on a secondary revenue stream like premium paid products, complementary services or advertising.

FREE business model examples

• Free newspapers
• Youtube
• Google: Gmail, Picasa, Google Maps,…
• Online games
• Free mobile network: Blyk.com

FREE business model variants

• Freemium
• Advertisement supported
• Complementary services
• Amazon associates variant
• …