I think ebooks fall under your second category for transparent products. Many customers think the only costs involved in producing a book is printing, with the physical cost of printing an ebook should cost nothing right? Perhaps transparency is the wrong word, but something closer to the concept. I think many customers would find a breakdown of their $10.00 amazon ebook interesting.

Transparency, especially regarding costs I’m not sure about. Trying to justify costs to customers (consequently pushing prices on them) is difficult. I’d argue the most transparent products tend to be 1) commodities and 2) things people don’t like paying for. I think a pretty good example is the pie charts on fuel pumps at the gas station.

Marketing, this is a tough one. I’d argue that ebooks present an interesting opportunity but are not yet a necessity for small publishers given limited adoption of gadgets to read them with. Has anyone tried a pay what you want/can system yet? Even beyond one off successes of established brands (yes everyone will say Radiohead) this model has had some wins. Songslide uses this system and the average amount paid is well above the 0.99 iTunes charges.