Exhibition #11- A Book Review

Kacey C. Krznaric
“The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson Book Review

A Shift in Control:
How a Move Toward a Purely Digital Culture
Is Putting the Power Back In the Hands Of the Consumer

When I accepted a “friend request” on Facebook from my 80 year old grandmother, it sunk in. I realized that everyone, to some degree and for some purpose, uses digital media. Whether it satisfies your thirst for popularity on social networking sites, provides an outlet to vent about that crappy vacuum cleaner that you were suckered into buying, or supplies you with the tools needed to search for something better, something more unique, digital media is the platform on which we stand. From the pits of Amazon, you can find that obscure book that you’ve been searching for all these years. If you’re looking for that special song from the early nineties that creates the nostalgia of Senior Proms past, go no further than Rhapsody. A couple clicks of a mouse can take us virtually anywhere we want to go and at whatever time we choose. In “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson, we get a walk-through, step-by-step, and personal examination of how digital media is changing the market, the economy, and ultimately the way we live our lives.

The market has changed drastically since the days of the phonograph. We have moved away from a place where record label execs and large, chain retailers determined who was who and what was what. Now with advancements in technology, the Worldwide Web is taking the power from their hands and placing it in ours. Throughout “The Long Tail,” Anderson paints a proverbial picture of this market for us, presenting it as a “tail” that has grown tremendously in length with the introduction, and ultimate progression, of digital media. Simply put, Anderson describes it as having “hits” (standing strong at the base of the tail) and “niches” (nuzzling into their places along the length of the tail and into it’s tip). While the hits have always been the major players in the game, the niches are fundamentally the reason the market is changing. The niches are the “money pockets” and, when they come together, have the potential to be just as powerful as the hits, shifting the economic curve significantly for the first time since the introduction of the phonograph where newspapers and magazines owned mass media. Now we are moving toward what Anderson calls the “pure digital model” and the effects that this new market has on the economy is truly profound.

The economy thrives on supply and demand. I think Anderson does a great job at explaining this by using a large scale retailer that everyone is familiar with: Walmart. Before the Internet, Walmart could only hold a certain amount of product and it was up to them to make educated guesses as to what would sell and how much if it to carry. Now, with the introduction of everything digital, “selling out” of a product is unheard of. With a few mouse clicks, you can get anything from top selling hits from Rihanna to the no-name garage bands that don’t even have a record label, or even a full CD for that matter. Virtual shelf space is unlimited and most importantly, low cost. This allows for an almost endless chain of supply to satisfy our almost endless chain of demand.

“The Long Tail” has given me a revamped perspective on our present day culture. As a user of digital media for everything from social networking to obtaining my Master’s degree online, I can appreciate how this cutting edge form of media has been beneficial to me. It provides the tools I need to stay in touch with family and friends all across the world, conduct in-depth research for educational projects, search for possible employment opportunities, and it provides an outlet for any type of entertainment you could possibly imagine from listening to classical music to learning how to play it. While there will always be hits and niches in the market, digital media has impacted our culture indefinitely. It’s become consumer-driven and consumer-operated. It gives us a vehicle and it gives us a voice. “The Long Tail” is timely in that it gives us a solid education of the market, how the market affects the economy, and how the economy ultimately affects our relationships, our careers, and our livelihood.