Giving It Away

Sep. 22, 2003

There are a couple of interesting things going on that involve organizations giving away their products and/or services. Although this sounds unintuitive, there may be something to this idea that you can use in your business or organization. 

MIT is officially launching their Open Courseware Initiative this month. What this will do is let anyone who has an Internet connection, effectively take some of their high quality courses online for free. MIT feels that by opening up their style of teaching and showing how good their courses are will increase the value of an MIT education and degree. 

I also read an article that mentioned that the BBC is planning on making its entire media archive available to the public via their Web site. They feel that they can build brand loyalty and customer interest in future media programming. 

The bottom line: If you have a product that you don’t sell anymore, especially old versions of software, consider giving it away. It could do wonders for renewing interest in your current offerings and enhance customer loyalty.