The truth, in todays fast paced instant information, internet age is a topic worthy of discussion. Chris Anderson's revolutionary book The Long Tail was one of the most insightful and sharp business books of recent years. He predicted a new approach to business that could only be facilitated using the web as a sales venue. It is a model Amazon has shown not only as functional but astoundingly successful; as they are happy to take little bits of action in all different markets and make money. They may lose money on a Kindle edition of a new bestseller or it's hardcover counterpart, but they make up for that lost sale in seller fees for everything from books to cds, to dvds. And while they have your attention they just might sell you anything from a generator to a new gps to a new set of Golf clubs. They truly are the stock market of retail goods. All of which Chris Anderson saw coming in his Long Tail. But, in his newest highly anticipated book coming out in July called Freemium he seeks to examine the ability to give away product, services, and content online as a way to gain business in the long run. I can't wait to read the book (and it is free to download at least for the first 2 weeks) but the recent coverage in the NY times about his blatant word for word use of many passages direct from Wikipedia - begs the question - is total Freemium a good thing? If you can write a book using wikipedia, if you can write your college term paper without ever really checking out solid "real" sources, if you can outsource your book and term paper to India...are we really better off? I think this at your fingertips ability to get everything fast and without much work is spawning a generation of potentially lazy "corner-cutters" and bending the truth or where your sourced the truth isn't a good thing. Then again, prior to the internet age would we ever have known about Anderson's blase use of Wikipedia, or Senator's dalliance, or what about James Frey's bogus memoir? The internet age has brought the ability for real time fact checking by the world - public official caught with the wrong woman - someone saw you and is plugged in and is willing to tell the world using his twitter feed. So, we can cut corners but we can't keep a secret in this age of information - it just takes a little more hunting and fishing around, a role that the general public must now accept as newspapers trim staff and head towards extinction. Are we better or worse off? Like the eReader - it's hard to tell - but it is time to accept that in todays world - like it or not that is just the way it is with the truth.
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