The Long Tail: When will the music industry get it?

As Chris Anderson points out to us in his article The Long Tail we have, for a very long time, had our consumer choices dictated to us by economics. As Anderson puts it the "[t]yranny of physical space" has limited our choices to the items that could 'pay' for the physical space they occupied until we decided to buy them.What this means is that the items we buy have often been produced to appeal to a mass audience. Invariably mass audience appeal has translated to a massive budget and a massive budget, naturally, translates to a huge risk. The upshot is that the cultural produce we are consuming, more often then not, will not deviate from the tried and tested, that might guarantee a box office or chart topping hit, and therefore a return on investment for the producer. That is, or was, until Web 2.0.

A new way has emerged and, I would argue, the result is that we can now access more of what we want (and less of what we are being told to want). As the uses of the internet become more sophisticated creators have are able to access their audiences directly, doing away with the need for any given product to be popular enough that it 'pay' for the right to sit on the shelf at your local store. Musicians, writers and filmmakers alike are developing niche markets enabling them to derive an income without necessarily appealing to a mass audience.

What is the problem with this new way? In a word: copyright. Many of the revenue streams available to creators through the internet are different to our straight forward 'pay per use' type system. Musicians, record companies and industry commentators are so busy whining about declining music sales that they're missing all of the great opportunities on the internet to gain an audience and a fan base. Let's remember, what really kills most musicians is not that so many people are 'stealing' their music over the internet but the fact that no-one is doing so.

Now we have all these great ways for people to make direct contact with their audience and potentially earn an income. Check out sites like Amie St and Last.fm. Sites like these pay artists directly for their work by giving a kick back for advertising or other revenue earned based on the popularity of the artists work. And then theirs all the free marketing options such as Qtrax, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.

In recent times these options have given many artists the 'leg-up' they needed to get out of obscurity and into their career. OkGo produced a low budget film clip that they released through YouTube that made their song an overnight success. The Arctic Monkeys hit the top of the MySpace charts when a group of fans posted their music on the site without the bands permission. You can bet the band aren't complaining about this copyright infringement. In response to the success of these free marketing sites other artists, such as Lily Allen, have successfully marketed themselves by providing free access to their copyright material and enabling them to derive an income because of the popularity of their music.

Perhaps what record companies are really complaining about is that they are not getting their piece of the action anymore. More and more artists are now able to access niche markets. Maybe it's time that the recording industry got with the times and stopped trying to stifle the efficient use of internet technology in order to make it work with an old economic model.

How do online communities organise themselves? What does it require to form an online community?

Firstly, it is probably important to consider the question: why do online communities organise themselves? Put simply, there are so many people and so much material on the internet that it is impossible to utilise it all. So how do we make use of the availability of what and who is most useful to us?

Someone I know, who works in nutrition, recently said to me that the fact that the internet has provided a space for all sorts of "thinspire" and "pro-Anna" groups is not actually such a bad thing. He claimed that it provided a space a group of our community, who are often isolated, to feel connected once again. As a result it also provided a space where the problems faced by the individuals were put on the table. The truth and honesty that comes out of such a virtual community may actually assist professionals treating eating disorders to properly understand what they are dealing with.

Attribution-No-Derivatives-By saschaaa

As Terry Flew (2004 p.64) points out the desire to be part of a community is likely to be a direct result of the alienation and individualisation that we have seen as characteristic of modern, industrial, capitalist societies. Perhaps this feeling of isolation and disconnectedness is more common than we would like to admit. Perhaps the ability to become a part of an online community enables us to explore an aspect of ourselves that we wouldn't have otherwise. For example Flickr.com has enabled many people to explore their interest in photography by sharing the experience.

There are all sorts of online communities. Essentially this question is only limited by how we define an online community. In a sense an online community could be anything from a group of people with a shared interest who email each other regularly, say a sporting club who contact each other online, to a highly organised group who interact solely over the internet. An effective online community requires organisation and structure to begin with. From then on participation is the key.