The bubble, Free, and the Long Tail(i.e. What We Learned, and Where We are Headed)

People look at the .com bubble and look at it as a way to discredit internet business and leaves consumers in fear of it. At least thats what retailers want you to think. The problem really is in that we were not ready for the .com rush that happened. We applied old business models to a new business entirely. People forget that the internet has created a gigantic shift in our lives as big as the ice age, world war II, and if I may be sacrilegious a moment almost as big as the coming of Christ. With this shift we also must shift our thinking in new ways to aggregate profits and products and throw off the stagnant shackles of the old business model.

Chris Anderson’s “The long tail” has shown us that there is a market down the long tail of supply and demand. This tail is a two way street in which consumers are lead down the long tail and producers can be brought up it just as easily. Not only does it make lesser known titles more profitable it can also create hits out of them in itself. With this new model many fear that storefronts will be put out to pasture but I beg to differ. When it comes to actual physical product people will not way for the delivery of it so for your hits people will always run to the Barnes and Nobles to buy it rather than to wait and let it be shipped by amazon. Our impatience wont allow it. However the model will change what products end up at our local retailers. Our future is in a more bottom up approach in which the market will decide the hits and major companies will no longer tell us what we will watch and listen to. In a sense we will retake control of our culture and return it back to the masses.

As long as we continue our approach to free it will no longer be possible for record companies to turn a song into a hit through advertising when we the consumers can simply find the things we like ourselves. Why force a hit when you can simply pick something up that people are already drawn too as well? While consumers are paying less also they will begin to consume more and more making more and more possibilities of what to read watch and listen too. We will tap into the abundance of media and use it to our advantage causing a better quality of content and a more loyal fan base to it.