Long Tail theory Reading Notes: Chapter 5 new producers

Professional-amateur Joint Sports were born in the popularization of production tools: the garage band provided by Apple's Mac computer can "record your next hot song ", digital cameras and desktop editing software generate a family of movie producers, making online publishing easy.

We are switching from passive consumers to active producers. Amateur blogs are competing for attention with the main streaming media, while obscure bands are releasing unlabeled music online, children can use video game software to make their own computer animated short films. Millions of people have mastered the tools and action models necessary to be an amateur producer. Some of them must have extraordinary talent and imagination to create the most creative and influential masterpiece.

Wikipedia is an open-ended encyclopedia compiled by millions of amateur experts, semi-experts, and even ordinary people with confidence and knowledge. It is bigger and more time-sensitive, and has a commendable resistance to the destruction of behaviors and ideological struggles. It can continuously improve itself and treat itself organically for a long time. This book is based on uncertainty and also has a quality level in the statistical sense. Although a single entry is incomplete, the probability of finding an accurate related entry for any topic is very high.

Wikipedia is a combination of all popular products and a large number of niche products.

• It contains 1000 entries in any encyclopedia, such as the Second World War. Wikipedia has four advantages over experts: one is real-time update, the other is unlimited space and graphic assistance, the third is a large number of external links, and the other is to display different ideas and disputes.
• From 1,000th to 80000 entries (The Encyclopedia of Britain till now), the topic is more professional and its advantage is that the entries are longer and more comprehensive.
• 80,000th to 1000000 entries are long tails and are unique to Wikipedia.

This kind of collective production, that is, large-scale voluntary participation and amateur participation, is an extraordinary phenomenon created by the Internet.

At the head and tail of the long tail demand curve, the motivation for creation is completely different. The demand curve begins with the traditional currency economy at the beginning, ending with the non-currency economy at the end. In the header, It is the territory of a professional. Commercial factors are dominant, and there is a reputation that is not inferior to money. Reputation is measured by how much attention a product attracts. It can be converted into other valuable things: Work, title, and various business opportunities.

This is an exposure culture, which reflects the logic of the Internet. Everything is meant to attract attention.

In self-publishing, 98% of books do not have commercial value, but are by no means irrelevant. Books are no longer the value, but an advertisement that promotes the value, the value lies in the author himself. Many of these types of non-commercial books are just marketing tools to improve the academic prestige of the authors, promote their consultancy services, earn lecture fees for them, or simply leave their names in the world.

For the producer, one of the biggest differences between the curve header and the tail is the working role: the closer you are to the tail, the more difficult the balance between your hobbies and formal work.

New participation mechanism: the traditional boundary between producers and consumers has been vague, and consumers are also producers. Some people can create independently from scratch, while others can transform their works, some consumers also contribute to the verbal communication effect that is multiplied by the Internet.

Just like a traditional musician, the only right way is to imitate those masters and do the right thing, while punk rock has changed the rule that you have your guitar, but you don't have to do the right thing, you can do something wrong. You are a good musician and have no meaning at all. The only thing that matters is that you have something to say.