Wednesday, May 9, 2007

The Long Tail and community

Trying out this blogging by blackberry thing.

The reason why this is such a big deal to me is that what's been keeping me from blogging more frequently is time and routine.

Just so happens that I have time on my highly routinized commute home every day. I expect far more output going forward (unfortunately, that doesn't guarantee greater profundity).

So one of the points of The Long Tail is that the blockbuster is busted. No longer will we have the one TV show that everyone in the country is watching at the same time. His point is bolstered by some numbers from Nielsen. For example, the number one show in 2006 would not have made the top 10 in the 70's. And that's despite the increased number of televisions, greater population, etc... There are just many more options and the pie is split into far more slices.

So my question is: what does this do to our sense of community? Used to be one could go to work and bond at the proverbial water cooler over Archie Bunker or M*A*S*H. Now, we're all segmented and you watched american idol, but I watched korean soap operas or downloaded a video or watched youtube instead.

Does this trend, only accentuated by the rise (once again) of personal entertainment devices separate us into balkanized city-states of personal interest?

Anderson's answer is that it just redraws the community lines. Instead of connecting to that yahoo next to me on the subway who also watched the big game last night, I'll reach out to the (international) online community of passionate high school curling fans who can share my anguish over the big loss.

And that connection, possibly, will be more important. Because I am choosing it. Fighting arbitrary distinctions of geography, I have sought out and found my cohorts, however few and far flung they may be.

All well and good. But there is the niggling little human need for contact - actual physical, eye-to-eye contact. Can we really replace that with blogs and forums?

More on this later

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