Great opportunity for entrepreneurs

I link to my colleague, Matt Winn’s post, on the debate about Chris Anderson’s Free.  Matt summarized discussion aptly.  I remain more interested in the entrepreneurial opportunity which underlies Free and The Long Tail.  Free is an attention grabbing title for a book that explores all the different pricing and marketing opportunities the internet offers, regardless of tail length.  The entrepreneurial opportunity is that distribution costs are near zero.   Combine low distribution costs with virtualization, cloud computing, and outsourcing which dramatically reduce production costs.  The field is wide open for entrepreneurs who master making products that grow virally or who master internet customer acquisition economics in a defensible model.