cross-posted to CCR 711: Network(ed) Rhetorics

Chris Anderson makes the point that busineses that market to the long tail will succeed in the networked economy as more companies embrace both current stocking/marketing of hits as well as suggesting lesser known titles, for there are many more lesser known titles, which can lead to more sales/growth in an obscure category than the popular hit category.

There are just three things that I’d like to touch on with regard to the long tail: free content, software, and resistance (my own) to the long tail.

At the free content end of the long tail is the Internet Archive. The IA archives as much public domain content as possible. IT Conversations has a podcast by Brewster Kahle about Universal Access to All Knowledge (note: it’s a long preso). In the presentation he talks about how inexpensive it is to digitize content. I really didn’t realize that it only costs about $10 to digitize a 300 page book.

When reading Bnoopy’s post, it made me think of the differences in small and large scale software development. I’ve worked for both types of organizations. For large companies in the head of the tail, they don’t necessarily have to perform perfectly because there they have more room for error. That is, momentum will carry them along for a certain time period with little internal or external effects of even sizable mistakes. On the other hand, small scale development really means taking advantage of every dollar savings and cost improvement. A mistake of several thousand dollars can really mean the difference of staying in business or going under.

Once of the areas where I think businesses large and small are inefficient is the over-use of individual client apps as the sole project and knowledge management tools. Lots and lots of knowledge is buried just in people’s email. When people leave a company, the people who are left don’t go looking in the recently departed’s email history for an answer; rather, they accept that the knowledge left with the employee. However, if companies developed more public content management and process documentation requirements and standards, then the situation would be better, especially for smaller companies that could then be able to capitalize on the long tail regarding software development. Heck, if developers would just comment their code, it would be one step in the right direction because it might mean the difference between starting over and modifying an existing app.

The last thing I wanted to touch on is viral marketing. Because of the long tail, we buy more stuff that we don’t know we want, certainly don’t need, and probably can’t afford. For example, I go into a convenience store to buy a bottle of water or a Diet Coke and on the glass door of the cooler is a clear plastic display shelf for candy bars. They are suggesting additional products and really, I don’t like it very much. I don’t want to be offered a candy bar when I go in for a water or a diet coke. I just want what I came in for and that is it.

Sure, since I love books, it’s nice that Amazon suggests other titles to me. But, it’s also led to information overload. Now instead of 30-300 books on my to-be-read list, there are 3000. I don’t have the time or money to ready everything I want to read. Heck, I have about 65 books on my shelves right now that I have bought over the last 5 years and haven’t had time to read. Part of me is disgusted. The other part of me is overwhelmed because there are probably 500 books that I should really understand in the next few years. It’s not going to stop (nor, obviously, do I want it to completely) so I need to learn better strategies for managing it. It’s just that the long tail isn’t all good — as with everything else, it depends on your perspective.