Wired's excellent Long Tail got me going! Ever since I read The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler, I've been looking forward to mass customization. He called it thirty years ago, folks! Sometimes it takes a while for these things to develop.
The reach and ubiquity of computers and the Web, shrinking, portable and cheap digital storage (think iPod, CD and SD card) and the rise of digital content are all driving this trend into major commerciality. Chris Anderson makes an open and shut case for the importance and imminence of this big-deal trend.
We've been living in a *hits* driven economy. Our lives have been limited, shaped and dominated by the most popular: TV, movies, books, magazines, cars, news, everything. We've taken it for granted that that's all we're gonna get. But, the tables have turned just recently and the non-hit, the *miss*, the esoteric, the marginal are on the march.
Digital content is so light-weight, easy to distribute and renewable that it's absolutely affordable to *stock* the offbeat and even unpopular. And make money at it! Anderson asserts that while the sales of hits has a high dollar value per title, there's a much larger demand for non-hits just because there are so many of them. The bottom line is that, if you do it right, you can make more money selling non-hits than you do selling hits. Anderson gives examples from Rhapsody, Netflix and Amazon to prove his point.
I am ecstatic about all this. I'm not the only one that's been wanting access to every TV show that was ever on the air. Sure, there was a lot of junk, but occasionally really great stuff popped up and typically didn't garner a big enough audience to stay on the air.
The iTunes store does this for music. They sell the latest hits, but they sell tons of non-hits. Entire catalogs that have been out of print are now available - one song at a time.
I've been saying to myself for years that if only we could find the books, music, TV, movies, weblogs that we like, we would be consuming a lot more of them. It seems with music for instance that many people just give up. They rarely even listen to music. I've gone through periods like that. But, when I discover music or books I love, I'm right back to listening or reading avidly.
By smartening up the finding and tasting process, leveraging the wisdom of crowds, and making all titles accessible and available, not just the hits, sales could go through the roof. And we could all be having a lot more fun. Cheaply. Buying songs for 99 cents can be a very cheap way to build a killer collection. Anderson argues that pricing should go as low as 20 cents for old, already-expensed, low-popularity stuff. Wouldn't that be great!
Read it. Not only is the article a must read, but there are a bunch of well-done information graphics (like the one I used above) to check out.