Long Tail Economics Interpretation

The differing opinions of this TechCrunch article on Long Tail economics and the research to which it refers just shows another example of how context and interpretation are so important to Math. The original article analyzed movie and music purchases from online sources and concluded that most money is still spent on mainstream items, rather than obscure or specialized items and therefore, there is no money to be made in the Long Tail. TC disagrees and uses the hyper customization of Google AdSense as a counter-argument.

But, even more importantly, the statistics themselves don't necessarily bear out the conclusion. All they really tell us is a fairly self-evident fact - that, yes, popular music and moves are, in fact popular. And that there is more money to be made in selling widely popular items, because the volume is much higher.

What would be a more useful set of data would be to compare a Long Tail inclusive vs a Totally Mainstream service, offering the same items. For example, Blockbuster vs Netflix. Because then the availability of obscure and specialized items becomes a competitive differentiator. For example, if I find that Netflix has the Hungarian film Kontroll available while Blockbuster does not, I am more likely to sign up or stay with Netflix and to also use them to rent Indiana Jones or Sex and the City. So, while Netflix may not be making a ton of money thanks to a few dozen people renting Kontroll, they are making money as a result of their Long Tail offerings and coincidentally depriving a competitor of that money.

I Kissed a Girl Redux

I heard Katie Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" for the first time today. When the DJ announced it was the next song, I wondered if it would be a remake of the song by the same title by Jill Sobule from my younger days. Well, the words were different, but it was exactly the same song. It was the exact same ethos of experimentation with the safe mention of a boyfriend so no one has to worry that this is a *gasp* lesbian song. I'm a little sad that mainstream pop songs haven't moved toward a more explicit acceptance of homosexuality as perfectly normal, but it could have been worse - it could have reflected the Girls Gone Wild kind of experimentation which occurs only for the sake of turning guys on.

It was an interesting coincidence (for me at least, maybe I'm the last kid on the block to hear this song) coming in the same week when a study was released that shows women's sexuality to be more fluid than men's. In other words, most women can be just as easily turned on by women as men, because it's the context not the person that is the trigger.

So, maybe the reason the song remains the same over this past decade is that the pendulum of mainstream attitudes toward women's sexuality has finally reached a happy medium resting point. Art just preceded the science to prove it.