Day 1: Explain how "The Long Tail" changes the way we think about business.
What I saw with The Long Tail, took place in books so Jeff Bezos stepped in to address the need. He made a simple place to organize the wealth of books. It shows that the hits are not the only moneymakers in the game or on the charts. I mean, I have a book I renewed in my memory from Goodreads.
I don't remember now where I found this particular title, Getting Things Done, by Edwin C. Bliss, but a good review of the book ties to Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and another book by the same name! Can you imagine, another book by a different author of the same name and similar topics, David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity even exists?
If you couldn't, despite the present example, you're not alone. Yet, this is the idea The Long Tail imparts. There's a significant amount of room under the distribution curve of sales, hits, plays- whatever your metric. Of course, we would all like to be National Bestsellers, but how could it be we all have that title if there's only one nation? Multiple representatives of niches can become quite popular, it seems.
I'm exploring how this all relates to memes and their community tokens, which happens to hold some parallel.
One of the more resonant ideas is that the rise of “Pro-Am” or professional-amateur creators was predicted over 20 years ago. Now we’re seeing a revolutionary period where creators- whether by digital asset or good- are able to take ownership over their creations for real value exchanged on the internet, all directly or peer-to-peer as the space likes to call it.
Take into account the ease with which things can be created digitally these days and you have a playground ripe for incumbents to decide on the rules of the sandbox. Sadly, there’s much about launching new assets early and often to bring home ill-gotten gains. All the more reason one of the more visible coins to come of this formula should position itself to change things, but that’s a personal thesis of mine.
I haven’t gotten the heart to share this to certain communities yet, because they all have their own rules to play by as well. Still, if you read or recognized a book I mention, feel free to chime in.