A few weeks ago an old college friend of mine, Mark Wicklund, a brilliant man who is getting his Doctorate in Linguistics at the University on Minnesota (is Professor the opposite of Confessor?), sent me this link:

http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html

After reading it I replied to him, and I realized it would make a good blog entry. Here is my original reply:

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Mark, I finally had a moment to check this out. Thanks for sending it to me. It’s interesting, but it’s hard to get past the guy’s huge ego. (His “about me” is almost as big as the article!) My favorite line from the Wikipedia article:

“The phrase the Long Tail was, according to Chris Anderson, first coined by himself.”

LOL

The theory seems like pretty obvious stuff to me, but it’s all observational and reactionary of course. It’s been going on at least since the 80′s with the advent of a hundred cable channels and the idea of an all-music-video channel seemed absurdly vertical.

But when some self-important editor deems it necessary to claim ownership of a generic idea like that and, in the second paragraph of his “about me”, writes…

“My speaking engagements are handled by The Leigh Bureau If you’d like to have me speak at a commercial event, please contact them directly.”

…it’s a big turn-off. Seems like he’s just another huckster selling his wares under the guise of offering wisdom. Whenever some suit starts spouting cliché phrases like “buzz marketing” and “viral marketing”, it’s a sure sign they don’t have a !@#$%ing clue as to what they’re talking about. I’ve been hearing those terms for years now and still no one has been able to show me a single example of where that has actually worked or paid off. We still live in a world where our cultural choices are dictated by massive marketing campaigns costing millions of dollars spent and dictated by the corporate giants. Any look at the Billboard charts or recent box office draws would prove my point. There’s not a single “viral” marketed item amongst them. Hanna Montana? Bruce Springsteen? Yeah, right.

(Disclaimer: I don’t read Wired magazine. After reading his blog, I saw a copy at a library a few days ago and thumbed through it. I guess it purports to be a technology trend focussed publication, but it seems more to be a cross between Maxim, Spin, and People Magazine, except without the rigorous journalistic standards, haha. In fact, that particular issue had 3 articles on magic (magic??), a guest editorial from JJ Abrams (Felicity? Lost? please.), and advertisements for both cigarettes and booze. This kind of sophomoric, parlor-trick “intellectualism” does a disservice to us real nerds and geeks. So, this is Chris Anderson’s legacy? Hmm.)

Maybe the real lesson to be learned from Chris is that if you want to quickly make megabucks, simply claim to be an expert on some trendy theories that typical corporate suits have no clue about. They are so afraid of losing their stature and Land Rovers in this collapsing economy that they are desperate to throw money away in the form of hiring an “expert lecturer” who will leave them feeling self-satisfied and sufficiently stuffed with enough new catch-phrases about current tendencies in the marketplace in order to appear cool and “in the loop” with their idiot bosses and around the water cooler next monday morning. If that’s the goal, then this guy’s got it right.

Finally, at the end of his page:

“By the way, there is no better way to spend $10 than to subscribe to Wired. But don’t take my word for it. It’s the wisdom of the crowd.”

There’s that wisdom word again. Who would even want the wisdom of the crowd anyway? Isn’t the triangle widest at the bottom? Isn’t that the same as “mob rule”? Since when does wisdom have a price tag?

So, is his blog an example of the very thing he’s talking about? Selling his books & lectures one reader at a time instead of paying for a full-page ad?

Hmmm, this would make a good blog post….

cheers,

john

PS – I concur with the criticism offered by Anita Elberse in the Wikipedia article. Seems she’s an actual expert on the subject, too. It’s more recent as well. So much has changed since 2004.

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And then, a week after sending this reply to Mark, new light was shed on this very subject that even further erodes the veractiy of Chris’ claims:

P2P Study Questions Long Tail Theory
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i3e5aa5e0b30aa48e0874ebf4627fd88a

So, there it is. Another self-styled “expert” debunked by actual experts with real research. Imagine that.

Quad Erat Demonstrandum

Now, can we please get back to making great music?