Whiteboard Diaries

For those of you who have not read The Long Tail, its a must read. For those of you that have, I’m going to borrow and elaborate on one of the concepts covered in the book.

I was particularly grabbed by Chris Andersen’s commentary on how before the Internet that society was governed by a “Hit” or “Success” driven marketplace. In the book he stated that due to the financial barriers of supplying products in a bricks & mortar environment that we (as consumers) are only subjected to a limited number of options. These are the “Hits” that are favoured by the masses and generate the largest profit margin for the retailer. Basically, of the thousands and millions of products available in the world, as consumers we are only exposed a very small percentage. Only the ones that retailers can afford to give shelf space to.

This basically created a culture of conformity that affected each of us as individuals. We all became somewhat similar based on our exposure to similar products, music, tv shows, books and so on. This was life before the age of global communication, global community and global commerce all made possible by the Internet.

Fast-forward to today. Where do we stand now? Well, with almost anything and everything ever created available at our proverbial fingertips online, we have started to fragment from a conforming society to a society full of individuals.

Look at me for example, before I could amass (what is an insanely large) music collection through peer-to-peer music sharing and iTunes, my collection consisted of about 300 cds of artists that I was exposed to by mass media channels such as the radio and MTV or Much Music. My taste wasn’t quite top 40, but it definitely wasn’t as unique as it is now.

With so much music available online, I can find anything from top 40 to the no-name garage bands in almost every single genre. I’m able to discover music in my own taste, at my own pace in my own space. I’m actually defining myself by what I like. I’m no longer being force fed, at least not at the same magnitude, what embodies me. My music collection now consists of somewhere around 1,800 different artists. Notice, how I didn’t say full albums? I can pick and choose the individual songs that fit my niche interest. Finally, I am truly me.

This is as true for almost any other product as it is for music. Books, movies, clothes, information, technology and so on. I didn’t even touch on the consumer-generated movement in this post. My unique appetite no longer has to be filled by professionals. I can be fed the most amazing stuff by anyone, anywhere, at anytime.

I love the new world. It’s way more interesting.