The 4 Kinds of 'Free'

futurelab default header

by: David Armano

This is an updated to my original post since Chris Anderson added a "4th Free".

Actually, the ironic thing about number 4 is that it perfectly captures why I’m doing these visuals in the first place. If Chris uses them, he gets better quality representations of his ideas while my reputation benefits from additional exposure. This is a new kind of currency that we’re seeing being used and what fuels it is the accessibility we have to each others through more of an open source way of working. If Chris chose to write his book in more of a traditional way—people like me wouldn’t have known about his need for help or his desire to improve the rough visuals he created. So, this post is a testament to the "gift economy" which Chris recently added. 

Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2008/10/the-4-kinds-of.html