I think that the idea of giving away something for free as a business plan will only work in music and other verticals which do not require you to provide support for the something. This has been a key point in the recent articles on the pitfalls of Freemium.
Disagree for the most part. There's always something that can be given away for free: blog posts, free trials that lack support and require a paid upgrade for it (e.g. Magento), ebooks, contest giveaways, etc. If you can't give something away for free as part of your marketing, you're probably not thinking creatively enough.
That is definitely a possibility. The trick is to find the right "free" product to give away. It has to have value, yet also not require a heavy amount of support.
