See you on the flipside! - The Long Tail Phenomena

This week's reading will be one of my favourites, Chris Anderson's The Long Tail. I thought it was a really well packed reading touching upon the power of long tail as opposed to the physical states like bookshops and record stores. Just when you thought, Kinokuniya is earning the big bucks, but rather, Amazon is the hot shot player here. Why? Digital VS. Physical. Mass VS. Niche. This is the long tail.


Are you ready?


The long tail is the 21st century of misses!


We have been under the perception that mainstream hits are the best sellers but actually what's surprising is that alternatives are bigger hits! Why? The thing is, we really have been exposed to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. The movies we catch at the cinemas and the music we rocked on through the radio needs local audience that would actually watch or listen to them. Finding large local audience isn't an easy task, everyone's got a life that doesn't revolve movies or the radio and so on.


Hence, what can be published or broadcasted is not colossal. Rather, online services carry more inventory than the traditional, physical retailers. This is b/c a niche audience can be found online when everyone is fragmented and scattered throughout the world! The real big deal comes from the niche fare found online. This demand is called the long tail.


Physical VS. Digital


Examples of companies in the physical and digital (long tail) world:


Physical -

Digital -

The 80-20 Rule


Most people would say that just about 20% of top 10,000 titles will sell at least once a month in online media stores. We also all think only 20% of major works will be hits where only 10% will be profitable. The correct answer for the first section that people got wrong is that, wait for it, 99% of every 10,000 titles are in demand! People would pay their cents and dollars for titles that aren't carried physically, like the jukebox!


Why?

• Hit-driven mindset

We always think that something will only make money if they are hits in the market. But what we didn't know was that the "misses" actually make money as well through services like Amazon, Netflix and Rhapsody. More "misses" = Profit = New market. Now, popularity no longer has a monopoly on profitability.

• Poor taste

We always assume that things that aren't in MPH or Speedy are "misses", we think they are products that people wouldn't pay their money for. We think that these 80% of work surely wouldn't be able to last long in the shelves. Our assumptions are wrong. The 80% does bring in the cold hard cash as well, b/c somewhere in different locations, there's bound to be audience. When there's audience, there's interests, there's your demand. The biggest money is in the smallest sales.

As we can see, long tail is giving an impact to revenues from all walks of life - music, movies, books etc. There's an obvious shift as long tail is slowing flooding to all segments, will companies that runs physically be in jeopardy? Fear not! There are new rules for the new entertainment company!

• Rule #1 - Make everything available!

Embrace niches. Aggregate dispersed audiences. Just like you and me, we have different interests. Multiply you and me to a billions and trillions of people around the world! You'll get a range of anime to documentaries to country and folk to German trance to Dota and so on. Remember, where there's audience, there's the opportunity. The trick is to just release everything. Do not think of evaluating the market or conducting a pilot test. Just release everything online. Think about it, you're saving more costs if you release than to evaluate.

• Rule #2 - Cut the price in half. Then lower it.

Yes, you've heard that right! From a business monger's point of view, 99 cents would be too little! But for the audience, 99 cents is too much! Customers are the King, haven't we heard this before? So how do we go about it? By right b/c everything is digitalized, production costs shouldn't exist now shouldn't it? W/ production costs out of the picture, the cost for a song online should be about 79 cents.  

It's crucial to price our items to digital costs, and not physical ones so customers feel worthy of their purchase.  What would drive customers further to purchase the song would be the fact that when they buy the whole album at one shot, they avoid illegal and virus-prone files. Also, they do not need to go through the hardship to collecting track by track of an album. These are called the psychological value of convenience!

• Rule #3 - Help me find it!

This is where you provide means for audience to dig in deeper into resources! Remember the "If you like Britney, you'll love..." example? How it works is that, Rhapsody has a feature that offers a magic box of similar artists and feels like Britney - Pink, No Doubt and The Selectors. You get the hits and the alternatives. Mainstream and grassroot! This would be a great expansion of the audiences' interest and a good way to breach your revenue!

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So what do you think of long tail now? Impressive isn't it! To think that Kinokuniya is the best bookstore in the world but when long tail comes into the picture, things start to change. The hot shots in various business lose their footing. One can only maintain and increase their revenue and pool of audience is by the 3 golden rules! Making everything available, cutting down the price and  providing resources might just make you the advantage player in your field!

Up until now, I've always thought only about the competition of stores physically. I've never knew that there's another sphere beyond that. It's the tug of war between digital and physical. There's now the obvious difference between push and pull. What we have to consider is that everyone is moving towards Cyberspace. That means the way we buy things will be different in mere years to come. Will it be a good thing? What do you think on this?

To long tail?

Cheers.

All hail the King: Convergence!

This week I'll be focusing on Henry Jenkins' Worship at the altar of convergence - A new paradigm for understanding media change. The 3 elements touched on are:


1) Media convergence 
2) Participatory culture
3) Collective intelligence

What media convergence this term really touches on are these simple 3 things. The flow of information across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between media industries and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who goes everywhere to seek for their entertainment experiences. Convergence talks about technological, industrial, cultural and social changes. Like a food chain, everything changes when an element is added into the routine. Convergence is that element.

That being said, participatory of audiences fuels the circulation of the content in the media. Consumers are encouraged to collect and filter the information they need from the scattered media content. With this, we also now see a shift from consumers to prosumers. Consumers who are no longer just the passive audience, but an active audience, providing feedback and action with the information gathered. This is one of the emerging culture convergence has to offer.

For the last point, 'Collective intelligence', an easier way to put it is:

None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool out resources and combine our skills. 

The media power is when everyone inputs a collective power to develop more information for important purposes. Easier put, convergence must be backed up with the collective cooperation of users to generate collective intelligence.

• Convergence Talk

So with this new phenomena, everyone wants a piece of it. Talks and seminars were conducted for the purpose of convergence and what is depicted out of it were:


1) Convergence is coming and you had better be ready.
2) Convergence is harder than it sounds.
3) Everyone will survive if everyone works together.

We don't see it but everyday convergence is catching up. We see The Sims on computer CD 5 years ago but today from a CD, it has evolved to an online entertainment platform. Here we have, The Sims Social, the latest trend of Facebook games after Restaurant City and Farmville. This being, online apps lead to mobility as now smartphones are everyone's shadows!

Yes, convergence seems fun since it's hip, cool and urban. But, the pattern of convergence is really not that simple as it seems. An example, since everything is moving into the online sphere, even music, then how would artists and record labels generate their main revenue from the online platform? Will mainstream Shakira or grassroot Standing Egg get income through ringtones? Or advertising in MVs? What's the deal? An innovation with complexity, convergence is.

Convergence is rather new. What it needs is nurture and development from the people involved in convergence themselves. A solid team work is the key to build up and foundation an idea. Similarly like buildings, tournaments and projects, the active involvement and cooperation is what drives a small idea into bigger things, to victory. Convergence works the same way too.

• The Prophet of Convergence

This title goes to Ithiel de Sola Pool as he laid out the convergence of modes process. What it means is that one-to-one distribution is eroding, one-to-many is the trend. Now, one service can be multiplied to multiple platforms, engaging more people. 


It was also understood that convergence is supporting a participatory culture where freedom in the Cyberworld is more lenient. Where communication are dispersed, decentralized and easily available. However, we are in the stage of media transition. A turning point. There's still a handful of decisions, unintended consequences, mixed signals and interests. Most importantly, what lies ahead of convergence is unclear directions and unpredictable outcomes. Convergence is definitely more complicating to the eyes.

• The Black Box Fallacy

In mere future to come, what we can probably expect is Black Box Fallacy where all media content will go through only a single black box, ubiquitously. In my opinion, the black box actually do exists, with limited purposes - VCD players - which has or will be evolved into a single box with multiple features - smartphones. A device that does everything for us, the universal remote. 

The black box will not only represent a technological shift but also on the relationship on how the market and audiences utilize the black box. How the market and industry will be impacted. Generating media content will be altered, using the media will also be altered.


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This is only the beginning of convergence. It will continue to shift and change and modify. This prolonged transition and transformation is how the media operates. Problems of convergence wouldn't solved at lightning speed. What can we do is that to maintain a relationship with convergence and the users in this merging to ensure continuous information are generated. Hence, with this participatory culture in mind, industries have to really understand and use this culture to maintain their business. All in for mutual benefits? Are you ready for more convergence to come?


Buckle up, I'm ready. 

Copyright & Creativity: Which road to take?

After a long break, it's time to get back on the horse! Hence, this week in relation to Intellectual Property, I've decided to cover the reading by Lawrence Lessig, entitled Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity. At first glimpse, you'd probably think, "Whoa, this dude sounds super serious."

But in fact, it is of something that we should actually sit down and roll the notion around our thoughts. What notion, you say? It's the notion of Copyright acts restricting the stretch of imagination and creation. It's an alarming issue because not many know of this, but having laws on work is actually limiting the masterpieces of artists. I find this interesting hence my reading for this week would be on Lessig's work. 

I would like to share with you a personal favorite of mine. How many of you are familiar with this quote?

"If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started by a mouse."

Ring any bells? The person who uttered such uplifting statement is none other than, Walt Disney himself. Yes, Walt Disney as in Disney. And yes, you've guessed it right. The mouse he was referring to is of course, the familiar, happy and warm face of Mickey Mouse!

Mickey Mouse started off his career with "the first widely distributed cartoon synchronized with sound, Steamboat Willie". Walt Disney took the idea and technique from a film made a year ahead, The Jazz Singer, which was the introduction to synchronized sound. Now, remember, watching movie with synchronized music wasn't the "in" thing back in those days. Those days were the era of silent film. Disney was merely experimenting with the concept of integration of two elements. It started off as a bittersweet perception by the audience but then the mixed feelings became the next big thing.

This creativity labeled as 'Disney Creativity' was a new platform and era of animation. Everyone was in awe of this fantastic creation, this spark, this historical moment. But, what we must take note here is that Disney actually built this genius work of synchronized cartoon with the inspiration of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr which was a synchronized comic.

Recognize that comic and cartoon is two relatively different concepts. Comic, in the case of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr refers to:

Whist cartoon, as we all know, are the regular cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Little Lulu and more which we all watch on Sundays over our bowls of cereals. Cartoon is animation. Cartoon is Steamboat Willie:

Now notice the similarities? It's with these clear depictions that you can see how did Disney took inspirations from Steamboat Bill, Jr to build up a parody of his own, Steamboat Willie. It was nothing of a coincidence, it was the main plan of a parody. Disney's case of borrowing inspirations did go a long way. Look where we are now, we've got Mulan, Pocahontas, Bug's Life and the likes. This borrowing created an impact of transitions on everyone's life.

Other examples of borrowing are:

 Dramas - Aren't all the storyline the same, but only of a little difference?

GD & TOP (Korean artists) with their Playboy inspired album cover. A controversial happened and the album cover had to be altered.

Ah, the on-going debate on Facebook becoming more and more like Google+. Classic battle!

Now how is this ripping, mixing and burning is related to intellectual property and Copyright?

As we all have gathered throughout the 5 weeks of Global Network, we know that information is the breathing system of networking and without it, Cyberspace can't run. Undeniably, information is intellectual property. Move aside, lands, cars, houses, information is coming to stay! With that in mind, with information contributed from different people with different perceptions, principles, credible data to share, it is only fair that these valuable information are protected. Agree?

When a work is protected, one cannot use the information without a care in the world. Right amount of acknowledgement and recognition must be given to the respective author. Why? Because he owns it. It's his right. But everyday without fail, every single one of us actually uses these information from a variety of sources for our purposes. And most often, credentials weren't given to the rightful owners. You may think, "Nah, Copyright? So what? It doesn't appeal to me, so why should I care?"

The answer is you really should care. Imagine this, you worked on a research for say 20 years. You went through all the hard work like

Interviewing the President of America,

Traveling 10 times to Japan

Drawing tons of crazy looking mindmaps etc.

Now would you honestly admit that you do not give a toss if people actually steal your work? I think everyone would be mad, isn't it? It's your tears and sweat, why would you even allow others to take credit for it? Of course, you turn to Copyright to save your work. When its time is up, then you release it to the public domain.

But when Copyright comes, creativity of work is also restricted. The amazing stretch of creativity is somewhat limited when we can't borrow people's work to change it for the better, to provide a better insight, to create history. To avoid lawsuits, we have no choice but to let go of our brilliant ideas. Isn't that just sad? Sad to see how much potential we can achieve but due to Copyright laws, we can't change someone's work for the better. 

To continuously modify a work to give back to the society is something I'm in it for. Who wouldn't want innovations? Who wouldn't want an even higher technological advancement? It's all like 'Disney's Creativity' where we take an original work to build and build and keep on building for something bigger, better and bolder. What do you think? It is true that we would want to protect our glorified piece of art but at the same time with others' input and modification of our work, the world would be a better place. To borrow or to not borrow? 

There's a split in the road, which road would you take?

Afterthought:

Honestly, it's really hard to put a foot down on which road should we really take. To take the one that protects our work seems right, but on another hand, people can do better for the future of our generation if they borrow our work. Although, it is tough on getting the permission to feature words or bits and pieces from the original authors, but I suppose in this case, if you're really confident and sure of your work to be a success, why not just give it a try? An attempt wouldn't really kill right?

It's risky to have published a book but to not be able to sell or shared to others because rules were violated. That would be a shame. Tedious or not, but when we put our shoes as the pioneer author, we would want to have the rights over our work. But what I think is, by abiding the rules of non-plagiarism, it is possible to borrow part of the work. Give credit, acknowledgement and reference to the credible sources. But to the extend on what it the limit of borrowing, that's another story.

Thanks for reading!