Hey, you! Ever read a free ebook that you downloaded with the author and publisher’s blessing? Did you go and and buy something by the same writer afterwards or not? Go and give up the ten seconds it will take to tick a box in Galleycat’s poll to determine whether giving it away is an effective loss leader tactic or not. I’ll be very interested to see the results from this.

Like any other denizen of teh intarwebs, I love a legitimate freebie. So I was pretty chuffed to discover (via BoingBoing) that DC Comics are getting wise to viral internet marketing, by releasing the first issues of a number of their best Vertigo titles in free-to-download PDF format.

Continue reading “Free DC Comics PDFs, and something to read them on”

Straight off the bat, let me just say that when socially and mentally disturbed people shoot up rooms full of school kids, I have no sympathy with their cause whatsoever, except to believe that society needs to find a better solution to these types of issues than simply pumping the people who experience them full of drugs with bizarre side-effects, leaving them with a lot of time alone and hoping for the best.

Continue reading “Screw it, let’s just ban everything”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? I know I’d like to spend less hours with my nose to someone else’s grindstone, and I imagine my American readers feel even more strongly than I do, as studies indicate they work even harder (and longer hours) than we British. Continue reading “The 6 hour work-day”

I’m a sucker for freebies – blogger and blagger in one simple package. Continue reading “Fancy a free Zooomr Pro account?”

David Weinberger at JOHO has an interesting debunk of Big Media’s recent criticisms of Wikipedia. Continue reading “Big Media doesn’t understand Wikipedia”