In my class this semester we discussed an article “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. He later wrote a book “The Long Tail” in 2006. In Chris’s article he explains his theory of how the internet propagates a power law he calls the long tail.
A brief explanation is the wall that is hit in the retail market is caused by a lack of shelf space, store area, even number of movie theater screens. These limitations impact the amount of offering that can be carried whether if be music, video, books, food etc. The effect is that physical locations are limited to selling higher volume sellers while products that don’t have a high demand are left off of the shelves. The internet has changed this dynamic as Chris asserts in his theory. Now the internet can provide consumers with a source for less demand products but the easiest is data that can be sent over the web as opposed to physical products though that exists as well. As our choices are narrowing in the realm of traditional media, online media is raising the bar by filling the niche of harder to find media. The purchase of the low demand products does add up and purchases show as a long tail.
Erin Scime’s article The Content Strategist as Digital Curator is a Part 2 to the Chris Anderson’s ‘The long tale’. Erin takes this conversation to the next step by discussing how online media sites become curators of the media they provide. In a museum a curator is responsible for selecting and arranging art in a manner that conveys a story or is viewed as a collection. This same role is also seen in the world of digital media.
My personal daily use of Pandora is a prime example. In 2000 Tim Westergren founded the Music Genome Project. Previously in the film industry, Tim was aware of the factors directors looked for when sourcing music for their films. He and a group of music heads reviewed some 400 elements of songs. The project now has over 700,000 songs and songs are still reviewed and added daily. The Music Genome Project is used as the music selector in Pandora. When you select a band or a song in Pandora it selects a playlist called a “station” based on that selection and similarities with other songs based on the elements of a song. The playlist is further refined by giving songs a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”.
Pandora uses the Music Genome Project (MGP) as a curator of your musical experience based on your taste. If you friend people on the website you can send each other “stations” making you a curator as well. Having been a user of Slacker and Napster I find that the MGP does the best job at matching my taste and I’ve found some great artists that I would not have found if not for the selection Pandora chose. Pandora’s digital content manager is a skillful curator or popular and more obscure music content. It’s the only place I’ve found one of my favorite disbanded groups, Captain Beefhart, more of a memory of college days then a current interest. The Iphone quadrupled the Pandora membership in 2008 and their future deals with Ford, Alpine and Pioneer to bring Pandora into the automobile will continue to increase their membership.
I enjoyed the article and now see examples of this theory everyday so I wanted to share it with others.
References
Anderson, C., The Long Tail.
Scime, S. (2009) The Content Strategist as Digital Curator. A list apart. Retrieved on January 27, 2010 from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/content-strategist-as-digital-curator
Story and video clip about Pandora. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2010-01-12-pandora-free-radio_N.htm
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