Learning from the Long Tail

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Learning from the Long Tail

• Collin Gifford Brooke
• Associate Editor, CCC
• NFAIS Humanities Roundtable
• October 14, 2005

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• The diversity of the ecosystem makes it a fertile
  environment for small players. You dont have to
  dominate the food chain to get by in the Web
  world you can find a productive niche and
  thrive
• -Steven Johnson, Web 2.0 Arrives

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Web 2.0 (OReilly)

• The Long Tail
• Data-driven applications
• Users add value
• Network effects by default
• Remixability
• Perpetual beta
• Cooperate, dont control
• Multiple devices

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The Power Law (Long Tail)
Profit Threshold for Physical Stores
Profit Threshold for Hybrid Stores
Profit Threshold for Digital Stores
Sales, Traffic
Content (Books, Movies, Music)
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The Power Law (Long Tail)
Bestsellers
Cult or Genre Hits
Academic Press Books?
Sales, Traffic
Content (Books, Movies, Music)
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Different Products, Different Strategies

• Bestsellers (Head)
• Highly visible
• Marketed to us
• Long sales cycle

• Long Tail Products
• Rarely visible
• Word-of-mouth
• Sales, not cycles

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Word-of-mouth Marketing at Amazon
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Academic Word-of-mouth

• Publication/Presentation Works Cited
• Graduate Seminars Syllabi and Recommended
  Readings
• Professional Discussion Lists
• Private Conversation
• All examples of patterned isolation.

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Archiving the Network
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Archiving the Network
Mapping relationships among texts as opposed to
simply listing them alphabetically or
chronologically
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Academic Knowledge Management

• Author/Article
• Keyword
• Keyword
• Keyword
• (Reading)

• Keyword/Concept
• Author/Article
• Author/Article
• Author/Article
• (Comprehensive Reading Lists, e.g.)

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Bookmarking/Tagging
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Social Bookmarking
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CCC Online Process

• Publish metadata for each article as weblog
  entry abstract, categories, bibliographies
• Add internal links (Works Cited and Citing)
• Extract keywords and add as Tags
• Bookmark entries in del.icio.us

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CCCOnlineTheTagcloud
Keywords from 5 years worth of articles from
College Composition and Communication
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Knowledge Management 2.0
Dave Pollard, Knowledge Sharing and
Collaboration, 2005-2015
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An Academic Wishlist

• KM Tools (Furl, del.icio.us, CiteULike,
  LibraryThing)
• Cross-platform, -site services
• Social academic software
• Humanities-technology connections

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Learning from the Long Tail

• Collin Gifford Brooke
• Associate Editor, CCC
• NFAIS Humanities Roundtable
• October 14, 2005