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"Information Rules" is a hand book for economic layman to understand emerging Internet economy, to help reader to apply feasible strategies into network business. As author mentioned in the beginning of this book, this book is seeking models, concepts, and analysis, which will provide reader with a deeper understanding of the fundamental principles in today's high-tech industries, and enable reader to craft winning strategies for tomorrow's network economy.
Technology changes, economic laws do not. This is the thesis of this book. Shapiro & Varian do a great job of explaining how the fundamental principles of economics are still relevant, even in the new network economy. On the other hand, the technology increases the pace of economic game and requires greater speed and agility to keep playing. Thus, it's necessary to adopt new strategies based on fundamental economic principles.

Shapiro & Varian develop this thesis into ten chapters: The Information Economy, Pricing Information, Versioning Information, Rights Management, Recognizing Lock-In, Managing Lock-In, Networks and Positive Feedback, Cooperation and Compatibility, Waging a Standards War, and Information Policy. Specific strategies are suggested in each chapter. At the end of each chapter, "lessons" are summarized to for readers to outline the main ideas efficiently.

Following are some feature points and strategies this book has reached to enable myself to the network economy.

Point 1: Information is costly to produce but inexpensive to reproduce.
The competition between Britannica Encyclopedia and Microsoft's Funk & Wagnalls brings reader into this topic. The cost change of information products is coming up with the shifting of pricing models and corresponding versions of a product to create both the maximum revenue opportunities and establish the largest number of members of the product's network of users.
Strategy: Personalize your product and your prices
There are three ways to pricing information: personalized pricing, group pricing and versioning. Let's analogize those strategies to the modern fashion industry, a fashion designer can tailor dresses specifically for the need of one customer (personalized pricing) or a group of customer (group pricing). At the same time, he/she also designs different styles (different versions of your products) which are hanged in the window of shopping center. This allows customers to select the styles (versions) that best meets their needs and enables you to pick up as wide a base of customers as possible. There are variety of dimensions along which you can version your products: delay, user interface, convenience, image resolution, speed of operation, flexibility of use, capability, features and functions, comprehensiveness, annoyance, support.

Point 2: Switching costs and lock-in
The total cost of switching = cost the customer bears + costs the new supplier bears. In companies' stance, products that can achieve "lock-in" will benefit from the "switching costs" that preclude customers from switching-over to competing solutions. The more successful you are at getting customers more locked-in to your products, the more successful you will be in keeping customers at peak prices.
Strategy:
1.Invest to build an installed base. 2.Cultivate influential buyers and buyers with high switching costs. 3.Get your customers to invest in your technology, thereby raising their own switching costs. 4.Sell complementary products and access to your installed base

Point 3: Positive feedback
The value of your product to new users depends on the total number of other users there are (externalities). As the base of users grows, more and more users add in. In information economy, the companies that have been propelled forward by positive feedback will become the biggest winners. So, it is the ultimate metric of success that each company pursues.
Strategy:
There are four generic strategies in network markets for igniting positive feedback, Controlled Migration (Windows 98), Performance Play (Iomega Zip), Open Migration (fax machines), Discontinuity (records to CDs).

Point 4: Standardization
The key assets in winning standards battle are: 1. Control of an installed base, 2. Intellectual property rights, 3. Ability to innovate, 4. First mover advantages, 5. Manufacturing abilities, 6. Presence in complimentary products, and 7. Brand name and reputation. Preemption and expectations management are two basic marketplace tactics that companies will need to employ.

Point 5: Intellectual property
Given the low cost of reproduction and quick, cheap and invisible distribution, protecting and managing intellectual property are more difficult. Although authors believe that the technological advance offer new opportunities which are far outweigh this rights problem, the solutions recommended here are relatively weak and difficult to carry out.
Strategy:
Take advantage of the lower distribution costs by promoting your products more effectively. Such as giving away free samples to sell the content, selling complementary products, choosing the terms and conditions that maximize the value of your property.

Besides those core points and strategies the book reaches, examples which integrate those points make whole book more readable. Authors use examples not only happened recently, but also 100 years ago. Such as interconnection battles were already existed in 1900 when local telephone companies were interconnected with Bell to provide long-distance service. 100 years later, browsers are interconnected with operating systems. History provided a pretty good guide for evaluating network-centric business.
However, almost all of these cases involve the very large firms: e.g. Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, which have strategic planning, high capitalization, and access to best consultants. But the very essence of the new information economy today is entrepreneurship, like Napster, Visi-calc, etc, with good ideas and lucky chance.
The most contradictive part in this book is chapter 6. Authors offer both sellers and buyers alternative strategies on how to manage Lock-in. No matter how effective those strategies are, the dilemma here is that if both sellers and buyers adopt the alternative strategies this book recommends, who will be the winners ultimately?
This book was published four years ago. The network economy has changed a lot since then. From the beginning of 2001, most Internet companies experienced the toughest time. As a reader of this book, a question comes to my mind constantly: are those information rules still applicable in today's network economy? According the thesis of this book, the answer should be yes. It's time to test the models of this book.