The Long Tail

From reading the article and watching the video of "The Long Tail," I learned a lot about how digital distribution through the internet impacts television, music, news and journalism, and democracy. There are many internet sites out there today that have taken over the old scene of television, music, news and journalism, and democracy. Sites such as Hulu.com, Itunes, freep.com, clickondetroit.com, facebook.com and twitter.com have all aided in the digital distribution takeover of these original assets.

This images shows the "Long Tail" effect of digital distribution. Image found at: http://thefuturebuzz.com/pics/laws/long%20tail.gif

Hulu offers a chance for television viewers that don't yet own a DVR or Tivo to catch up on their shows, wherever and whenever they want to, as long as a computer or smart phone are within arms reach. Itunes lets fans download a song from an artist's album instead of purchasing the whole disc. Freep.com and ClickonDetroit.com are local news and newspapers sites that allow people who want to watch the news or read the newspaper the opportunity to do so from their computer rather than their television or print copy of the paper. Democracy, as well, has found a niche on the internet, the presidental candidares in the last election used facebook.com and twitter.com to try to get younger voters more interested in the election and out to the polls.

This images shows a twitter pages dedicated to the 2008 presidential election, showing tweets from President Obama and Senator McCain. Image found at: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/09/26/new-twitter-election-site-highlights-new-medias-relevancy

In the magazine article, Chris Anderson explains, "Now, with online distribution and retail, we are entering a world of abundance." By this, I think he means that this gives digital distribution the ability to change the way that the media outlets operate. For instance with the example of itunes.com, it ultimately gives the consumer an option to purchase one song instead of the entire album like they would have had to do before hand.

Anderson went on in the article to explain this by saying, "People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of avaiable titles, far past what's avaiable at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And they more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture)."

From that, I learned that this infinate amount of "shelf space" that has now become available is helping the consumer and at the same time, helping and hurting the content producer. It helps the consumer because it gives them the option of more; more items available to them, more things to branch out to, and more new things to learn from. The content producer is helped in situations like the "Touching the Void phenomenon" where amazon.com gave recommendations and consumers purchased them. However, the content producers are also hurt, for instance in the itunes realm, Anderson shows us, "Even though 99 cents per track works out to about the same price as a CD, most consumers just buy a track or two from an album online, rather than the full CD ... from a label persepctive, consumers should pay more for the privilege of purchasing la carte to compensate for the lost album revenue."This image shows a man looking at the shelves at a Barnes & Noble store as opposed to the infinate amount of "shelf space" avaiable online. Image found at: http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/technology/space/barnes+noble+launches+world+largest+ebook+shop/1812226/1812231.bin?size=620x400

Overall, from the Anderson video and article, "The Long Tail," I learned about all the different aspects of the "long tail" and how websites are making a profit. How websites, such as amazon.com, google.com, netflix.com, and yahoo.com have all found their niche for products and consumers of those products. How the digital distribution is ever expanding and new markets can pop up everyday, ultimately increaseing the "long tail" and creating more of an asset for the digital distribution. I learned that instead of the consumer market of stores, people would much rather visit a website for their needs and be done in a few moments rather than a couple hours. In all, I learned that the digital distribution era is in no way going to fade out quickly, it is ever expanding and ever changing.

These images are logos of the sites Google.com, Yahoo.com, amazon.com, and Netflix.com, each has found it's niche in the world of digital distribution. Images found at: http://www.quickfeeds.com/EN/images/Google+Yahoo.gif and http://pulse2.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/amazon-netflix_logos.png


Take a look at the sources I used for this entry to find out more information on Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail." This can be done by watching the video or reading the magazine article:

Watch the Long Tail video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yku0GTrcuw&feature=fvw

Read "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson, WIRED Magazine Issue 12.10 - October 2004 at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html