http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081210_696392.htm
Because of the economic situation we are in now, people in the market have been turning to the internet for alternatives in spending and in saving their money.
” The urge to live cheaply was reflected in the surging popularity of online video. Tina Fey’s spot-on Sarah Palin shtick was credited for reviving the pop-culture relevance of NBC’s (GE) Saturday Night Live, but it also helped push free Internet video into prime time (and much of the rest of the day). Many viewers are ditching traditional TV (and in some cases, cable subscriptions) to watch shows on network sites such as NBC.com, and on sites like News Corp. (NWS) and NBC-owned Hulu, Joost, and Sling.com (DISH). For movies, some are forgoing expensive new Blu-ray players (BusinessWeek, 9/18/08) in favor of cheap subscriptions to services such as those offered by Blockbuster (BBI) and Netflix (NFLX), which both began including free streaming movies to set-top devices this year.
Music fans flocked to free songs, too. In September, MySpace debuted a service that streams entire music catalogs from the four major record labels to members of the social networking site for free. Comparable offerings from sites like Imeem, iLike, and Blip.fm gained in popularity. Rapper Lil’ Wayne proved that giving away music can be an effective marketing proposition, as he released 30 free tracks in July before going on to sell 1 million copies of his new album in a single week.
Free online software of all types saw a huge pickup in consumer and business users this year. From the micro-messaging site Twitter to the open-source Linux operating system, users are finding tools they can download for free from the Web to be just as efficient as expensive software packages.”