In her speech "Slaves of a New Machine : Exploring the For-Free -- For-Pay Conundrum",(Fillmore) Laura Fillmore, President of the Online BookStore, describes her first publishing experience on the Internet. "The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking" by Tracy LaQuey was the first popular book about using the Internet. Fillmore describes how the book was made available for free over the Internet, which paradoxically spurred the sales of the book in retail stores.
After this experience, Fillmore makes an attempt to sell Stephen King's story "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" over the Internet for $5 a copy. The sales over the Internet from this effort were minimal, but again the retail sales were boosted.
In a similar situation, id Software distributed the first level of their computer game "Doom" as shareware over the Internet. The remaining levels were only available through mail order from the company. Shareware is software distributed for free for a trial period. At the end of the period, the user is expected to send payment for the product. Doom went on to sell 2 million copies. However, as many as 20 million copies exist around the world, legally distributed as shareware. "By releasing chunks of their games as shareware, id's marketing strategy turns every player into a potential distributor ... (Laidlaw)".
These stories lead to the practice of using the WWW as a marketing tool. If sales of an electronic product can be enhanced by giving away some controlled part, then this kind of marketing will only become more prevalent.
Copyright © 1996 Patrick N. Brooks.
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