U Dub C

The virtual online library of Cornell University has some rich content on its site, displayed using Quicktime 7. There is a huge library of animal videos and sounds for users to browse through. The media was integrated into the site using LiveStage professional.

I live the look and feel Quiktime provided for this site, although the load time on some of the videos were slow. The site makes up for this by providing different file sizes to go with the users internet speeds. The embedded videos make for a smooth looking gallery, and I think fits the site well.

I do wish the audio and video players were embedded onto the actual gallery page and not on their own pages, especially the audio clips, they just seem so naked on their own in new tabs.

http://animalbehaviorarchive.org/loginPublic.do

The chapters we read in the Media Economics book were interesting and very relevant to the current book we are reading, as well as the one we finished, The Long Tail.  Chapter 10 of Media Economics dealt with the subject of advertising.  It is quite easy to apply the concept described int the long to tail to not only the market, but advertising as well.  This chapter was important to me because of my duties at work often have me placing advertisements on various websites.  After reading this chapter it had me thinking back to rationale of supporting things far down the Tail.

11.2 described the advertising market and gave examples of what percentage certain markets made up of the advertising industry.  Media made up a very low percent of this industry, making it part of the long tail.  But just like sales garnered from other markets tails, media advertising is still very important, why else would it continue to flourish.  Looking at the media advertising market ( a Tail within a Tail) one can see  that internet advertising makes up 2 percent of the US advertising market and brought in 4.8 Billion dollars.  This pales in comparison to other media advertising, making it far down the Tail of media advertising.  Is it all worth it?  I asked myself “when was the last time you saw a web ad and actually were swayed on making a purchase, and can I even remember what the ad was?”  The answer is no, so I can only hope the customers viewing the ads I put up for my customer are not as quick to skim past ads on websites as I am.

http://mac.le-musee-divisioniste.org/

Cinematheque

This is a French site that describes itself as a “streaming media art environment”. Several projects are displayed by artist from all over the world, including a project called “QuickTime as an artistic medium”.

I like the projects displayed, and the concept of a “global museum”, although I do with there was more embedded art onto the actual page, too many open in pop up windows.

The guest speaker had some great things to show us on the power of networks. The example of all the people online searching for the plane crash was intriguing, especially when it was told that they in fact found a plane crash from several years ago. Unexpected results often come with many of the innovative digital projects that arise on the web.

The other big topic in class was should information be free. A point was made that anything you ever do digitally will be available to anyone. If it makes it to the web, eventually anyone who wants it, will get it. As someone who creates original digital content in the form of animation and design, I guess I need to come to grips with this. Its not that hard to believe. This is why its important to watermark your work, if this is something that bothers you.

A cool streaming media use is streaming audio.  With an embedded flash player, a site can have audio files streaming over the web for visitors to listen to.  Usually the option of pause, replay, and volume control are on the player.

A site that i visited recently was the Housecore Records site, which had such a player on it.  The player played only one track, a single from the Arson Anthem record which at the time, was un-released.  The track was good quality and represented the band well, and got a lot of excitement going for the album.  I liked the track and bought the record as soon as it came out, almost solely on the fact that I had heard that track streaming on the website.

http://thehousecorerecords.com/Download.aspx

This was a great class meeting, both because of the guest speaker and the discussion at the end.  I really like the ideas my group threw out there, really was a good pool of info.  The age difference in my group also made it diverse and insightful.  It is always good to have as many points of view as possible when analyzing these subjects.  In the topic of “Who is a producer” I think we pretty much nailed it what we can realistically call a content creator and who is a contributor, and then who simply is just reading/viewing content.  It is like 3 tiers of digital media content on the web: creators, contributors, lurkers.

Now its on to the next book, which will hopefully be as good a read as the Long Tail turned out to be.  Im interested to delve into this text, as well as the continuing insight provided by my classmates.

The last point from the previous class was the guest speaker, he had asked how many of us were blogging.  It really made me think just how long I have been running a blog, its pretty neat when I think about it.  Blogs are fun and digital works of art when they have a healthy amount of readers and contributions.

1.  How has reading the Long Tail affected your views on marketing?

2.  Where do you predict the market for digital content (music and Tv/movies, software. ect.) is headed?

3.  How has “free” affected the market the most?

“THE TREND IS DEAD!!!!!” On May 7, 1996, anyone who bought Pantera’s against the grain album heard those famous words belted out. An album that proved a band could make a popular record without the help on MTV, the radio, or any other main stream distribution had arrived, much to the delight of fans who were sick of music that they were “supposed to be listening to”, according to the aforementioned sources. This album, and Pantera’s previous release Far Beyond Driven proved that people wanted something other than what was being shoved down their throats by mainstream media. This niche fan base did whatever it could to get more and more of bands like Pantera, despite the fact that it was not likely to be found in trendy, easy to access settings.

This example of purchasing against the trend illustrates the points that Chris Anderson makes in his book The Long Tail: purchases being made outside of what is considered popular and mainstream, the “tail” of music sales so to speak. The difference between 1996 and now is that the internet has become a booming market for sales of items found in the tail. With the rise of online market sources such as Ebay, iTunes, and Rhapsody, it as never been easier to find obscure items outside the realms of what is popular and mainstream.

Anderson explains in this text how the tail of the market has come into play now that customers are not limited to what is provided by bricks-n-mortar stores. With shelf space not being the last frontier for purchasing items, customers can now find virtually anything through online shopping, no matter how far down the tail an item may be located. Anderson properly analyzes these findings as well, explaining the many findings he came across while studying the Long Tail theory.

Anderson also makes his case with the water cooler theory, explaining that as we have more options to choose from, we move away from the hit-driven market of the 90s. When we can tivo our favorite shows or simply download them online, we are far less likely to be viewing the same things when we get off of work in the evening. Thus the water cooler age is coming to an end as we have less in common to talk about at work the next day, since it is unlikely that we watched the same thing the night before.

Anderson’s claims are backed up through several examples given in each of the most popular long tail markets, mainly music and movies. Since these markets can be distributed digitally and stored to almost infinite capacity, they are good examples to illustrate his points. The movie industry is moving from box office sales to DVD sales, making what did well in the theatres a less relevant number to follow in the market. Anderson points out that what was causing the demand drop off for movies was actually the cost of traditionally offering them. With the long tail market available, demands are able to grow throughout niches as people are able to more efficiently find what they want to watch, not just what used to be offered via the box office (130).

To show how the study of the long tail is essential to online marketing, Anderson gave an example of two up and coming artist from a few years ago, Bonnie McKee and My Chemical Romance. Since radio is no longer the only factor in launching a successful album, labels are using the internet to jump start young artists careers. Knowledge of how to appropriately use the internet to market talent is the difference between a bust (McKee) and a popular, selling artist (MCR) (103). Anderson also explains how using the internet’s tools such as filters and recommendations allow customers to delve further down the long tail and into niches to find exactly what they are looking for within a market.

These theories were all explained in an way those not familiar with economic theory or lingo could understand the points Anderson was trying to make. His many examples were both relevant and helpful to garner understanding from the charts and other information Anderson provided, making this an easy read while not compromising its make up. Anyone wishing to understand how the internet is changing the way we look at the market forever would be wise to read this book. The Trend is indeed dead, and knowledge of the Long Tail can explain how and why this came about, and where it is going from here.

This was a good class to reflect on what we had read so far in The Long Tail, and also provided some feed back on my reflection on what I had read thus far. Lots of interesting points of views on the book so far, I like how everyone seems to have their own interpretation of the content. It makes the conversations fun to partake in and listen to, since they go so many directions.

Im now looking forward to finishing the last part of the book and writing my review on it, their is a lot of interesting content in the book and it has been a good read, not too over the top or technical to the point where it is hard to follow. Im glad this book was assigned to us as the first reading assignment and I look forward to the next one.

The reading I selected to compare the “Long Tail” to was the article written by Elberse titled “Should you invest in the long-tail?”.

This article was focused on a differing viewpoint than the one taken by Andersen in regards to the online economy.  Elberse believes that it is still a hit driven economy, and that the niche economy is not as obscure and specialized as Andersen would like to believe.  Eberse believes it is more of consumers having a wider range of online purchases that results in these obscure niche purchases, not necessarily a consumer base that only buys obscure titles.

Elberse also believes we will not soon leave the “water-cooler era” that Andersen talks about in Long Tail.  He states that the consumers buying the obscure items are also buying the hits, therefore still validating the hit driven economy theory.  This is the main point of the article, but I am not sure I buy into 100%.  For example, in Long Tail, when discussing this point, Andersen used a wide range of examples and different markets that followed the hit driven economy plan that ruled the 90s, while Eberse seems to have just studied two examples – online music sites and online video rental sites.  The main point Andersen made in regards to the water cooler era theory dealt with the lack of television viewers, because we no longer are likely to watch the same things on television the previous night.

I think Elberse presents a good challenge to the Long Tail economy theory, its just incomplete and a little too opinionated.   Hits are indeed still important to the markets, but the online aspect of sales has allowed thousands of items to be purchased that would never have been found by their buyers.  Eberse also seems to discount the joy of making a purchase of an obscure item, and I would like to tell him that I was damn pleased to FINALLY find a copy of the Possessed’s 1985 masterpiece Seven Churches.