The Power of Free
Posted by anastasia on 03-02-2007
danah boyd, who is on the Mashup advisory board and will be speaking (along with Henry Jenkins at the conference), told me about a wireless company in Europe called Blyk. The concept is free wireless phone service for young people that is fully ad supported. It made me think about Ozzfest, and how they are making the concert "free" by covering the costs through sponsors.
In many ways we're used to this model with television — you get "free" network TV shows that are sponsored by ads. Or you can pay for a subscription to HBO and get no ads. Now that movies have advertising before the actual movies start, I think they should be "free," too.
I'm curious to know what Ypulse readers think of extending the network TV model to cell phones, concerts or other forms of "sponsored" entertainment/technology for young people. The amount of advertising and marketing messages goes way up, but concert tickets or a phone plan that may have been prohibitive suddenly become accessible.
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 am
I rarely use my cellphone.
I'd rather listen to a 30 second ad before making a phone call than to pay the monthly fee of $20.