The Long Tail

This concept is essentially about moving from the mainstream to the obscure. In today's marketplace of limited shelf space, retailers are only able to provide what they consider to be the hottest best selling items at any given time. This leaves a huge segment of the merchandising field un- or under-exposed. The long tail is the combating force. Think iTunes: iTunes is completely digital. As such, they have unlimited shelf space for their product, digital music. They can offer the new release hits from major artists, but they can also provide access to unpublished, out-of-production music from decades ago, or from up and coming artists that would otherwise have been pushed aside. The same is true for Amazon and books and many other businesses out there.

The long tail works on a process of recommendation and desire. If a person happens to like such-and-such, they may also like this-over-here. By referring this way, people move down the tail from the high-selling popular to the long-lost and obscure. Alternatively, if someone is looking for a product that they can't find in stores because it's too old or too obscure, the long tail services can provide access.

This is a great direction for the modern marketplace. First, it's convenient. These services provide access in a moment to more products than a physical store could in a year. Also in this selection, and especially with music services, one can choose á la carte selections from otherwise bulky titles. Second, it's fast. You don't need to browse shelves. You type in your search and the system will find what you're looking for, and likely make suggestions of other items that you may like but would have otherwise overlooked. Third, it's portable. Most (all?) of these services are online, making it possible to carry the stores with you anywhere. This harkens back to point one, convenience, but takes it a step further. There's no longer a need to go physically to a store. You can shop from the bus, the office, home, or the beach and have the items sent to your location of choice.

Podcast

Parceled out internet radio. Gotta love it! Following the theme of the week, I'm taking the convenience angle on this one. How can one not enjoy the ability to carry their favorite radio programs with them in their pocket, re-listening to their favorite episodes at the push of a button? And this is to say nothing of the open market that this provides! Anyone can join this revolution. In that aspect, the podcast generation has tapped into the free airwaves the same way that the original free press flooded the market with literature.

Podcasting allows users to create programs centered around their interests. This outlet has the added effect of inundating the boards with loads of well produced free media that would have otherwise been overlooked for monetary or other reasons. This is perhaps the greatest aspect of the podcast invention. And anyone can do this. You only need a spare minute and some free software like Audacity. Even a microphone is optional if you have a good set of speakers (they are, of course, nothing more than a microphone in reverse, really). Of course, one should have a little creativity and personality, but those are totally optional.

Quiche Florentine Tutorial

This week's blog, or vlog, I should say, is a video tutorial that I made about making a souflé style quiche florentine. Please enjoy! The clip was a little bit long, so it had to be split into two parts. The second is linked in the first's description.

The HTML rambling video blog

This is my attempt at video blogging, or vlogging. The process wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, but, then, I took a page from the You Suck at Photoshop vlog series and chose to do this tutorial-style without me on screen. This is the first time that I've used the CamStudio screen recording software. I found it very easy to use once I got it set up. The only tricky part was defining the custom keys so that I could start and end recording with keystrokes, and this is an entirely optional step. Below, you'll find the wonderful ramblings of the first tutorial that I've ever created. It doesn't go into a whole lot of detail, but it does cover the very basics of creating and styling a web page for those interested. Please forgive the audio sync, it seems that the screen capture lags a little bit behind the audio feed, so some things don't quite match up.