Picking up from my last post titled - I can’t believe it’s free – Chris Anderson – said I would try using Radian6 to find out if  Chris Anderson and/or his publisher, somehow, fomented  controversy, starting close to June 24th, around “Free” in order to  sell more copies of his book (available from Amazon.com on July 7th, 4 days from now) in place of having anything new or unknown in his book about  “Free” worth the level of discussion taking place; this takes forensics (yet another new term – “Social Media Forensics“), not sure Radian6 is built to be a forensics tool.

I used Conversation Tracker in Blogpulse because I wanted to establish a sequence of posts as they appeared- noticed June 23 is when most of the controversy started (see above) and the very first place it appeared was on Kottke.org but it’s really Gawker ( <i>Wired</i> Editor Steals Content for Book About How Content Should be Free [Books] ) that gets the ball rolling with 4 more posts between 6/23-6/25

Also, it looks “kinda” suspicious (or maybe I’m reading too much into these charts) the spikes just “happen” 15 days before the book launch, seem to be 7 or 8 days apart and get larger as they approach July 7th.   Maybe this pattern is natural, I bet is influenced by some deliberate promotions.

But who is actually the influentials for this conversation about “Chris Anderson” and “Free”?

According to the criteria I set up in Radian6, the 4 sites most influential in Chris Anderson’s “Free” conversations are Techdirt, Chris Anderson’s own Long Tail Blog, Gawker and Valleyway (another Gawker blog) – which boils down to whoever wrote the Techdirt posts, Chris Anderson and Gawker Media.

The next question … what does Techdirt and Gawker Media get out of promoting Chris Anderson (are they all in bed together in this – or are they adversaries)?

In  Mike Masnick at Techdirt, it appears to be a honest question about the book (see below):

There was a lot of attention paid recently to charges of plagiarism in the book. Chris has admitted to the basics of the charges, and explained it as sloppy editing in an effort to deal with concerns about how to cite online content. I have to admit that sloppy editing seems like a weak excuse here, and a bit disappointing. It seems a bit lazy.

That said, I’ve discussed at great length my position on “plagiarism” in the past — and, amusingly, much of it is inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s own discussion on plagiarism, where he recognized that someone taking his own work and adding value to it and doing something different wasn’t such a bad thing after all, and that it could actually represent an inspiration. So if I were actually “plagiarized” by Chris or anyone else (and I don’t believe I was), I’d actually find it something of an honor to have my works as a part of something better and more interesting. I don’t think it takes away from the quality of the overall work at all. I would have preferred that such mistakes in attribution did not happen, mainly because it’s a distraction, but the issue is a minor one. If Chris can take the works of others and make it into something more valuable, aren’t we all better off because of it?

In Gawker’s case Ryan Tate stirs up the controversy with a provocative title “Wired Editor Steals Content for Book About How Content Should be Free” on June 23rd and has been viewed 22,506 times in the last 10 days (as of the moment I checked it), but the post is more hype than substance, typical of what you’d expect from Gawker.  Ryan Tate write another post on June 29th about Condé Nast’s Grumpy East Coast-West Coast Feud that has had 7,000 views (last I checked).  Essentially, Radian6 told me we have a “geometric” relationship between Chris Anderson, Mike Mesanik, Ryan Tate, plus a few others; the debate was honest, as far as I can tell, but I’m not sure there’s much substance to “Free” (after all, it is “Free” which is being equated to “Zero”).

In order to create buzz, I guess, all we really need, is a product or idea and a few well known bloggers – disagreeing, right before publishing date for book – like 2 weeks – perfect, and just what Chris Anderson wanted.

Hmmm…..

I was just thinking – I was at Chris Anderson’s talk last December Chris Anderson at The Wired Store, NYC. What is new about Free? and I questioned him on the use of “Free”, then (and got a copy of The Long Tail with an additional chapter about “Free” that was included to preview the upcoming book.

Now the publication date of his book is approaching – I bet he’s tickled pink with all the authorities that have weighted in and disagreed with him, partly or fully, about “Free”. I’m almost tempted to think Chris Anderson wants all of this disagreement as it’s driving awareness (maybe it’s “pseudo – discussion” – a manufactured discussion to drive traffic – a cheap way of getting advertising by not having to do much but get other people who are well known to weigh in).   In fact, I’ll play with the buzz about “Free” by setting up a profile in Radian6 and discussing influentials – it’ll be interesting if I can find out that Chris just asked Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell to weigh in of his “Free” book to generate buzz.

(I don’t know if I’ll be able to prove that – but I strongly suspect it to be true - but I could be wrong).

But then, Mark Cuban gets involved – just what we need to muddy the waters and weighs in on Free vs. Fully Distributed.

Articles from Malcom Gladwell in New Yorker, and Seth Godin discuss the various merits and challenges of Free.  Is Free inevitable ? Is Free the beginning of the end ? Let me answer the question.

…… In the long run, printed content producers should have a brand, and use their institutional knowledge, their core competencies and ability to procure, improve and market to maximize the value of their brands and the perceived value of their content. Whether its on a central website, a co produced website, in print or on a hologram in the evening sky, I should go to the NY Times because they have demonstrated to me that they have the very best articles on the subjects I am looking for. That they are the best source for breaking news about the topics I care about. THEY NEED TO MAKE SURE I DONT HAVE THE CHOICE OF GETTING IT ANYWHERE ELSE BUT WHERE THEY DICTATE.

To be honest, I’m not against this.   There’s a lot of RSS feeds out there, but maybe, in the case of the New York Times, they should control how it appears.

I spoke with Chris for a minute after his talk last December and I didn’t think he had made a full case where “Free” was the new “it”.    There’s a lot to digest from Gladwell and Seth Godin, so I don’t want to write a post that states my full opinion – but I did feel, when I saw Chris Anderson, talked with him personally – that his idea of “Free” has more wind in it, than substance.

For all the talk about “The Long Tail” over the last couple of years, many have begun to debunk it – it’s an oversimplification of a current situation – and I bet the same thing could be said about FREE.

More coming later – I’ll read that last Chapter of the Long Tail now.

I’m here at The Wired Store listening to Chris Anderson, who is introducing us, at this exclusive free breakfast (which I dragged my body to) listen to his ideas and the next book he’s writing.

I could almost hear Paul Krugman’s ideas of “spending our way out of deflation” superimposed over Chris Anderson’s rant about the New Free, and what “Free” means as times change.

The idea that technologists make technology cheap but “WE” figure out how to use it.

Chris maintains that Computing has become so commonplace that it’s no longer “metered”, as computing once was.

Same thing with Storage.

Chris Anderson thinks society might be focusing on the wrong metrics in determing future trends. Google figured it out (Yahoo was forced to adapt). Gmail is an example.

Bandwidth is another thing that is becoming “Free”. The history of free bandwidth started with Radio in the 1920’s and TV in the 1950’s to YouTube in 2005. It’s also about “Everybody Loves Raymond“.

Problem is that no one loves Raymond.

We will figure out what the future of Television by “whasting it”. The future of technology is to make it so commonplace that it’s free, and then Change happens.

The 4 kinds of Free

20th Free (you’ll pay for it eventually)

21st Free (free to you but some one else pays for it).

Freemimum model – give away 95% free while 5% pay for premium services. People who pay care about the product.

Gift Economy Free – people are motivated by “psychic” rewards, psychological drivers that work better than Money as a driver.

Economy – what is the defination?

Bertrand (France 1900’s) – competiton will lower prices to close to 0. 100 years later, The Internet, makes the marginal costs are “0″ and everything digital will become Free.

And, everything that can be Digital will be Digital and become Free.

Games, shift from selling Games to selling Play (software as a service). In a game there are 2 ways, walk or “buy” to teleport.

What that tells me, what Chris Anderson is saying, is that TIME is the new cURRANCY in the new media model.

Competing with FREE

- match Free with Free (microsoft) and Free is a good way to market (some will pay, eventually- Free creates Celibrity which can be monitized).

- Open Source (current version)- people are buying different services (software is free, but everything around it, not, and people value those services and will want to Paid). Example is Microsoft BizSpark.

-IPhone (free and paid versions) and Freenimum.

Interesting, so the Freenimum model is the answer?

Free is a way to sell Your Brand.

Actually, I’m thinking that Chris Andersen’s ideas don’t work for every industry or circumstance – but that, maybe, those industries need to Re-Invent themselves and how they provide value.   Certainly the Automotive Industry needs to be Re-Invented, but so does the Job Search and Online Recruitment Industry need be Re-Invented.

I spoke with Chris briefly and got a signed copy of his book – but since I’ve read it already, just the last chapter on the Long Tail of Marketing is new – I’ll read that …and then, maybe I’ll read the rest of the book, if I have time.

Problem is, many people are beginning to de-bunk the idea of the Long Tail – and have, for the last two years – so I don’t know if the Long Tail, and the new book Chris is writing has all the answers – but I think it’s good to know about his ideas because they are influential.

In fact, what I’d like to see more of, is Chris Andersen asking people how they might apply his ideas to their industry – I don’t see any of that – and personally – I think a lot of his ideas need to be distilled to work in any particular situation (which I said to him).

Sebastian and I are slowly building our Blogspeedway.com blog network from a couple of different angles, one of them being the identification of Influentials based on Social Media (I’m using Radian6 to identify influentials) and then, go out and contact them, and ask them to  check out Blogspeedway.com, and apply to join, if they’re interested.

So far, in the last month or so, we’ve added about 20 bloggers, a few need to still be added to the online list, and we’re more of a loose community at this point with influence building coming first, and making money off of it, later.

But I had not actually published the list of Gardening Influential Blogs that I found, based on a set of keywords I harvested out of Google Keyword Planning Tool – here’s the list of blogs, first with two lists – one based on expensive keywords and another based on much less expensive keywords, both have decent traffic:

< $1.00 + higher traffic = long tail blogs
http://earthfirst.com/
http://richardxthripp.thripp.com/
http://www.electricboogaloo.net/wordpress/
http://fairegarden.wordpress.com/
http://www.gardenrant.com/
http://urban-oasis.blogspot.com/
http://perennialgardener.wordpress.com/
http://oodlesandoodles.typepad.com/
http://backyardneighbor.typepad.com/
http://scribbit.blogspot.com/
http://nikkipolani.wordpress.com/
http://razorfamilyfarms.com/
http://reddirtramblings.com/
http://bayouwoman.wordpress.com/
http://maydreamsgardens.blogspot.com/
http://straightfromthefarm.wordpress.com/
http://www.flowergardengirl.com/
http://www.growbetterveggies.com/
http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/
http://www.sansomfamily.com/
http://bungalowinsanity.com/
http://ledgeandgardens.typepad.com/
http://carletongarden.blogspot.com/
http://patientgardener.wordpress.com/
http://kaseyskorner.typepad.com/
http://digitalflowerpictures.blogspot.com/

And here’s a set of Gardening Influencer Blogs that have higher cost and higher traffic

High Cost (a couple of dollars) + High Traffic
http://fairegarden.wordpress.com/
http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/
http://blog.douggreensgarden.com/
http://scribbit.blogspot.com/
http://reddirtramblings.com/
http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/
http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/
http://razorfamilyfarms.com/
http://urban-oasis.blogspot.com/
http://www.octamom.com/
http://www.netkushi.com/blogs/blogs/4scd/
http://maydreamsgardens.blogspot.com/
http://plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com/
http://webecoist.com/
http://wherethebeesare.blogspot.com/
http://nomorehornets.blogspot.com/
http://gardeningtipsnideas.com/
http://thebrendablog.typepad.com/thebrendablog/
http://doneganlandscaping.com/
http://www.nestmaker.com/
http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/
http://brambleberriesintherain.com/
http://godmessedmeup.blogspot.com/
http://rozcawley.typepad.com/autumn_cottage_diarist/
http://homemades.blogspot.com/
http://www.juliezickefoose.com/blog/index.php

There’s a few blogs in each list that overlap, but most don’t – and taking them both together – I used my own methodology to cull this list – most of the bloggers are unknown beyond the small sphare of their Gardening followers, but I believe, this is precisely the place to start for Blogspeedway.com.

We also have about several more segments that I’ll do research on, but I thought I’d publish the full list of Gardening Influentials here – take a look at them for yourself and see how much you agree.

By the way, while many of these blogs do look similar, but I don’t think they’re all the same people; in fact, to prove they’re all different people I ran LinkSurvey 1.6 on the first list to see if there was any common links – which would indicate, if nothing else, these bloggers knew of each other and may have decided to trade links or linked to a common source.  Nada.

Good!  I’ll soon be writing all the blogs below and inviting them to checkout Blogspeedway.com