Developing my ideas about the missing piece of The Long Tail theory has taken a surprising turn, as a rather hopeful email to Chris Anderson, The Long Tail author and Wired Editor-in-Chief was met by a prompt and thoughtful email helping me to crystalise some of my ideas… Just goes to show that the connectivity of the internet is more than theory – it’s reality. And also helping are my constant discussions, disagreements and challenges to blog chum Dave Cushman from Faster Future…
As I said previously, Chris does a superb job of reminding readers that the new culture of niche interests in the internet-accessible long tail does not mean the end for big entertainment companies producing hits aimed squarely at the short tail. But the justification for this is left implicit, understandably, as it’s the Long Tail which is the radical new idea. Just a shame then, that a surprising amount of people manage to completely miss the point and go straight to proclaiming all mass media dead.
But there are reasons for these big companies to survive, as they transform into agents of the new prosumer, rather than content creators.