In a recent newsletter, media business consultant Ted Gioia wondered what happened to the "long tail," an idea first popularized in this chart-heavy 2004 Wired piece by Chris Anderson that argued that niche content was going to thrive and the idea of a mainstream would become moribund. Because of internet content delivery, "the future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream," Anderson claimed. The infinite shelf space of the internet would allow the idiosyncratic tastes of individuals come to the fore. But there is a strong stench of wishful thinking in passages like this one:
Countdown to apostasy
Countdown to apostasy
Countdown to apostasy
In a recent newsletter, media business consultant Ted Gioia wondered what happened to the "long tail," an idea first popularized in this chart-heavy 2004 Wired piece by Chris Anderson that argued that niche content was going to thrive and the idea of a mainstream would become moribund. Because of internet content delivery, "the future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream," Anderson claimed. The infinite shelf space of the internet would allow the idiosyncratic tastes of individuals come to the fore. But there is a strong stench of wishful thinking in passages like this one: