The Long Tail is the Firm Footing of the Internet
August 11th, 2010 § 1 Comment
In case we ever forget, articles like the one spotted by Media Post in Newsweek (“Crowd Sourcing Loses Steam”, by Tony Dokoupil and Angela Wu) put us back in awe of the sustained level of performance of long tail web publishers in the Burst Network, many of which have been furnishing content to their loyal audiences for as long, or longer, than Burst has been selling advertising to support them, which is nearly 15 years.
As the Newsweek article suggests, legions of internet gadflies turned loose on the world by the power of the web may be losing steam. A sustained level of content production, it turns out, is hard, and eventually it turns boring if there is no particular passion to support it coming from the inside, or compensation from the outside. Per writers, Dokoupil and Wu:
“Many other elements of the user-generated revolution…are beginning to look sluggish. The practice of crowd sourcing, in particular, worked because the early Web inspired a kind of collective fever, one that made the slog of writing encyclopedia entries feel new, cool, fun. But with three out of four American households online, contributions to the hive mind can seem a bit passé, and Web participation, well, boring—kind of like writing encyclopedia entries for free.”
Thus, after many years the wheat begins to separate from the chaff. It should make it easier to recognize the commitment and contribution of long tail publishers that have been here and will continue to be here for interested users. They are the firm footing of the internet.
Great points. I think people forget about the long tail guys, and dismiss them often because they dont have $$Billion valuations or a buzzy name. Long tails have devoted audiences.