Variety and the long tail
seths.blog
Variety and the long tail
The Internet and the connection economy turn the economics of mass on its head. It’s now cheaper and more efficient to make edgy, amazing products for the weird edge cases (who are listening and talking and who care) than it is to push yet another average product onto the already overloaded average people in the middle of the curve.
Seth Godin • The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?
As the Internet became an always-on, mainstream phenomenon, however, it also reverted to the mean. Influencer culture happens at scale. It’s not about finding the bizarre nooks and crannies of weird, but reaching as many people as possible. Hit counts and numbers of followers are all that matter. It is about getting bigger, rather than smaller. Rea... See more
Douglas Rushkoff • Pockets of Weird: The Fight Over Reality
Over just a matter of weeks, a spread of generic categories that most people enjoy refined themselves into a series of specific interests that I shared with a smaller group.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
The long tail: good products of specialized interest. Each, by itself, doesn’t sell many copies, but taken together, the long tail sells as much as the short head.
Seth Godin • This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See
Back in 2014, Balaji Srinivasin wrote: An infinity of subcultures outside the mainstream now blossoms on the Internet—vegans, body modifiers, CrossFitters, Wiccans, DIYers, Pinners, and support groups of all forms. Millions of people are finding their true peers in the cloud, a remedy for the isolation imposed by the anonymous apartment complex or ... See more
Rex Woodbury • The Internet Killed Mainstream Culture
Social acceptance of weird behavior makes being weird more popular. This reinforcing effect causes tribes to rapidly splinter off from the now fading idea of mass. The weird person seems normal to her small group of fellow choicemakers, but no, that behavior is not big enough to be attractive to the mass marketer. As a result, the mass marketer kee
... See more