A Manifesto For The New Economy

Wired Editor and Blogger, Chris Anderson expounds upon his theory of The Long Tail from a talk given at the ICA. Considering the death of shelf-space as a dictator for how products are consumed, given the new possibilities of distribution in a technologically joined up world - The fact that YouTube can host more movies than the entire Odeon network of cinemas could ever have dreamed of. The fact that there can be so many more millions of songs hosted on iTunes than the shelving at Virgin Megastore. And the growth in economic value of niche markets as a result.

"The carrying capacity of the megaplex network is 250 films...There are 13,000 films shown in film festivals in the US, but only 250 of them made it to the marketplace - they just ran out of screens...[This is] A distortion of the natural market. If only you didn't run out of screens you could tap all of this. This is the 'dark matter' of the marketplace. This is the stuff there's demand for that we haven't been able to tap because of inefficiencies in traditional ways of getting products out there. This is The Long Tail." Chris Anderson.

Blockbuster Store - 3,000 titles. Netflix - 60, 000 titles. YouTube - 65,000 NEW video clips added per-day.

A talk on how new industry accelerates, rather than markets, demand for products, as it seizes upon products already proven to be gaining cultural value (on myspace?!) - adding value, rather than monopolizing it. But what happens when nothing is ever out of print again? Will we drown, or rather be forced to specialise? Will we live terminally atomised, or simply form new communities? Anderson again,

"[There is a] rise of the amateur and the non-commercial producer...I think what we are going to find is that talent is much more broadly distributed than old models would allow."

Listen to the complete talk, here.