Long Tails and Sharp Fish

This past week I listened to the discussion on the long tail principle, as well as the Fresh Air and Charlie Rose discussions on the iPad and a few bits on social media. I feel somewhat apathetic about the iPad, so the various learning elements mostly just annoyed me. To me, the iPad is much ado about nothing. Based on the various opinions I see on the tech blogs, I am not alone in that opinion. E-readers, on the other hand, especially some of the up and coming ones like the Skiff, are something significant, as the represent a change in the way written media are developed and marketed. The iPad does a number of things okay, but no one thing well, and is, thus, not a true convergence.

One of the more interesting and useful elements this week was the Razorfish report on Social Influence Marketing. The content was exhaustive but quite insightful. When I read the section on user created content, it reminded me of the Current TV channel. On Current, most, if not all, commercials (as well as a significant portion of the actual content) is viewer created. Their Website even features a section to help the user create - and potentially get paid for - ad messages for sponsors. ( http://current.com/participate/vcam/) As indicated in the Razorfish report, the sponsors here recognize that pushing a brand message is ineffective and allows for an interactive and honest communication of the brand with the target market. This is something I would expect to see used increasingly more on other channels.