Cory at Boing Boing gives a great example of what happens when traditional media tries to be hip.

Scott Sigler’s INFECTED — free download, inexplicably limited tells how Random House is making available free downloads of a book in PDF format before it goes to print. According to the mindset of the Internet today that is completely wrong.

This is an important concept to wrap your brain around. The long-standing question has been “Is giving things away on the Internet profitable?” Finding the sweet spot for Internet freebies takes courage.

My current feeling on this, and again I’m heavily influenced by a steady diet of Boing Boing over the last several months, is that the most important commodity in today’s economy is not money but recognition. The biggest danger for creative types is not unprofitability but anonymity.