The Compost

link: Better Than Free

An incredibly insightful article by Kevin Kelly. A must read for any entrepreneur attempting to understand where we are and where we are going in a digital economy where everything appears to be moving towards free.

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php

"Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?" -- Kevin Kelly

company: SkyGrid

http://www.skygrid.com/

SkyGrid is an innovative financial platform for hedge fund managers, portfolio fund managers, and research analysts. SkyGrid delivers real-time access to thousands of sources of relevant corporate news – and millions of Internet sources – to surface accurate, rich, and immediate market Sentiment.

company: Freebase

Freebase has the potential to become far more important than Wikipedia could ever hope to be.

http://www.freebase.com

"Freebase is an open database of the world's information. It is built by the community and for the community - free for anyone to query, contribute to, build applications on top of, or integrate into their websites." - Freebase

companies: Flypaper & Sprout Builder

Content and content creation tools are finally starting to grow up. These companies are leading the way to a much richer content experience for all - and it's about time.

Flypaper

http://www.flypaper.net/

"Flypaper is the easiest way to create edit and share stories that stick. Now with Flypaper's free software and ever-growing Model gallery, anyone can design and publish high–impact, Flash-quality content live or over the Web — in minutes!" -- Flypaper

Sprout Builder

http://sproutbuilder.com

"Sprout is a service that allows anyone to quickly and easily build, publish and manage sophisticated multimedia content, including widgets, mini-sites, mashups and more." -- Sprout