While quite surprising that “there were no searches at all for such modern [literary] masters as Malcolm Lowry, Martin Amis and Lee Gomes,” it wasn’t surprising to us, here at Zango, that Internet users like their music, pictures and everything else accessible via the Web to be available for free. Gomes, a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal (who, tongue firmly in cheek, included himself in the above reference with Lowry and Amis), reported last week on AOL releasing the Web search data from 650,000 of its customers. That data revealed that of the more than 17 million separate searches by AOL users, the most commonly used word (excepting prepositions and conjunctions) was “free.” As we said, it’s no surprise to us that consumers want their online experiences and content for free. After all, Internet companies of all sorts have conditioned users to expect their Web sessions to cost little to nothing. At Zango, our goal is to fulfill consumers’ growing demand for free content, such as online videos, games, music, tools and utilities, while at the same time automating and monetizing relationships between content creators, Web publishers and advertisers of all sizes. This is the essence of the Content Economy. The Gomes story and, more importantly, the data from AOL, is just the latest mainstream validation of our vision, which is to enable free access to Internet content by bringing together each of the four Content Economy constituents (i.e., consumers, content providers, publishers and advertisers). Free is indeed the currency of the Zango vision.