Radiohead may have gotten more of the press for their “name your price” album, but Trent Reznor continues to demonstrate that he understands the value of free content as a promotional tool, and perhaps more importantly that what he’s promoting can be quite far from free. Content Nation has a nice post on the ultimate goal of free-as-promotional:
In other words, this group of artists is recognizing that content’s primary value in media formats is to help people build valuable relationships. While there’s money to be had in mass-produced intellectual property, the high-margin business in content is in person-to-person relationship building that results in both executed business and a more multi-dimensional relationship that can be leveraged in many more ways than mass manufacturing can manage.