Comments on: The essential digital-economics library

By: Resources for journopreneurs | Tom Davidson

Resources for journopreneurs | Tom Davidson — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:07:54 +0000

[...] I freely admit that I’m a history geek (How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Four – one to unscrew, three to give you the history of the old one all the way back to the landing of the first English colonists at Jamestown.) If you want to understand the context of today’s media revolution, here are some terrific (I’d say essential) readings. [...]

By: A to the news industry from Hal Varian | Tom Davidson

A to the news industry from Hal Varian | Tom Davidson — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:11:16 +0000

[...] field of information economics (I’ve given away several dozen copies over the years, and it’s Book No. 1 in my personal essential bibliography of information economics). And odds are if you studied [...]

By: tgd

tgd — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:59:47 +0000

Funny that you mention the entire Stewart Brand quote. The extremists on both edges – those who believe “information wants to be free” is a religion, and those who think thems fightin’ words – have almost certainly never read the complete quote.

But why ruin a good polemic with facts?

By: Tim Windsor

Tim Windsor — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:46:45 +0000

I’d add The Cluetrain Manifesto which, ten years on, is as true as it ever was about how communication works in the digital age. Markets are conversations.

Also Reality Check, by Guy Kawasaki, to help kick-start the reptilian entrepreneurial part of the brain.

Finally, an aside about the famous “Information wants to be free” quote above. Let’s not forget that, when originally uttered by Stewart Brand, it was in a context that sounds, as the old Charlee jingle had it, “kinda now”:

“On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

…which I believe just may be the point of your blog, sir.