I’m posting the Top 10 Future Trends for 2017 over 10 days. Each trend includes an explanation, and what you can do to keep on the cutting edge.

Trend #2 is the surprising consequence of the downward cost of content: As content moves to its nominal cost (ie. Free), people are spending more on experiences. This is a trend which will rapidly grow in 2017.

Ten years ago, musicians would make their money selling songs and albums. Today, most music is listened to for free, and musicians make more from their concerts, merchandise and fan clubs. They are happy to see their music played on Youtube or streamed for free as they are no longer relying on their content for revenue, instead making more from experiences.

As newspapers and TV find it increasingly difficult to charge for their content, at the same time festivals, concerts, sporting events and adventure travel are all booming.

Experiences are pre-designed memories, and memories multiply when shared, so the most powerful experiences are shared experiences - through games, festivals, events, communities and movements.

People may come for the content, but they will stay for the connection.

Why will this trend grow even more rapidly in 2017? Because the volume of free available media continues to exponentially grow, and because AR, VR and mixed reality will hit the mainstream, where virtual experiences will grow exponentially.

Companies like NextVR have already done deals with Fox Sports, NBC Sports, Live Nation, HBO and CNN, and are set to livestream all the biggest sports events and concerts in virtual reality.

As NextVR founder, David Cole says, “By the end of this year it’s projected there will be over 20 million viewers in virtual reality, and by the end of 2018 there will be 200 million users.”

Are you still trying to sell your content?

What would happen if you gave it away for free instead, and then charged for upgraded experiences?

That’s what Pokemon GO has done, breaking all records to reach $500 million in revenue after 3 months simply through in-app purchases in the free game (the first Augmented Reality game that interacts fully with the real world).

This is what we do at Entrepreneurs Institute, where over 1.5 million entrepreneurs get free content from us, and then a percentage of them choose to attend our events, accelerators or retreats.

Expect all content to trend towards zero cost, and for all the most successful business models to move revenues upstream to one of the FIVE ‘E’s:

Experiences Engagement Ease-of-use Exclusivity Expertise

Which ones will you be most focused on in 2017?

If you missed Trend #1 you can read it here: http://bit.ly/2017Trend1

( These 10 Trends are being posted over 10 days as part of our Fast Forward Summit 2017 Launch on Thanksgiving Thursday. We’ve had 1,500+ entrepreneurs around the world join us as partners and I'd love you to join.

It’s free to join, and by doing so you can help us grow the entrepreneur movement - with 8 major entrepreneur summits and 50 satellite summit scheduled for 2017. You can join before our launch tomorrow here - http://affiliate.wd-central.com/affiliates )