The Long Tail 290
Chris Anderson writes "I'm the editor of Wired Magazine and if you'll forgive the autohornblowing, I think you'll be interested in my piece in our latest issue. It argues, with a lot of new data, that the entertainment industry is shifting from an era of hit-driven economics to one of niche-driven economics. Content that was once relegated to the fringe, beneath the threshold of commercial viability, is now increasingly able to find a market in distributed audiences, marking a shift towards the previously-neglected Long Tail of the demand curve."
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
'Cause none of us read the articles anyway...
Self-referential (Score:2, Informative)
It's a fringe-content article on Slahdot about pushing fringe content to distributed audiences through alternative channels! I was surprised that it didn't use itself as an example!
For a far better analysis of the issues, see "The Perils of the Imitation Age" by Eric Bonabeau in the Harvard Business Review June 2004.
Under Distributed Movies List (Score:3, Informative)
Basically I just look at the weekly box office for each movie divided by the number of screens squared and that tells me how much acceleration the market is placing on the distribution channels for the movies.
It works pretty well. Playing the Hollywood Stock Exchange [looksmart.com] with this metric does a pretty good job of detecting bargains.
niche-driven or convenience driven? (Score:1, Informative)
Sure, you could go to a fancy french restaurant and get some good food, for I don't know, $50 a plate. Or you could waltz down to your nearest McDonalds and grab a plate of crap for $5.
This is why people use NetFlix and iTunes. Mp3s in general. The convenience of it. Why would I want to drive to the CD store, dig through CDs, come home and rip it, just so I can slap it in with the other gigs of mp3s I have. When I could sit on my ass, download it and be done with it?
Sure, there's a greater selection, but I sincerely doubt that is the main draw. It's a pleasant side effect of the lack of overhead, as you point out. But that's not why people do it. They see the recommendations, it becomes much easier to stumble across rare music online. And when it's not expensive, and convenient, I'll snag a no-name band and check them out. I probably wouldn't if I had to go actually go to the store and buy a CD.
And the fact that recommendations encourage people to look into new music/books/movies doesn't say much about people's tastes... as much as it says that they still do what they are told when it comes to taste.
And there's various posts from people, "I listen to X unknown band, and I have niche tastes." Well, in most of those cases, if the music isn't coming out of you or your neighbor's garage, it's probably not nearly as "niche" as you'd like to think it is.
And then there's the people who perpetually seek out obscure and shitty music just for the obscurity factor. Even they aren't really niche buyers. I think most of the time they'd buy whatever ISN'T mainstream. It's not a specific niche, as long as they is some shitty, mostly unknown music for them to rave about, they are fine.
It's very easy to please the two major groups. (pop-chasers, whether they realize it or not AND those who chase obscurity for the sake of it, the intellectual aftertaste.)
So, I don't think it's the "Long Tail" selection that is drawing in consumers. I think it's simply the price and convenience of it all, that gives people the opportunity to experiment with other, less popular movies and music.