The Long Tail or The End of Cocktail Parties As We Know Them

There is a lot of talk these days about the impact of the "Long Tail" on the future of the media industry. The long tail, for those who don't watch Rocketboom, represents the extended fall off or "tail" on a typical consumption graph. As Wired magazine recently put it, the long tail includes "the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream." Put another way, think about the long tail as the back catalog of the world; all those albums, books, movies, journals, clubs, blogs, etc. that aren't popular enough to even find their way into the discount bins of life.

While the long tail includes, by necessity, a lot of crap (e.g., underwater basketweaving blogs) it is also an extremely powerful entity. In fact, the long tail cumulatively outnumbers and outweighs the bulging hulk that is mainstream demand and consumption (ie., the top 1000 movies, books, songs, etc.). What's more, long tail consumers are passionate, knowledgeable and extremely loyal customers that represent high value, high margin business to media companies.

While the long tail has always existed, the limitations of the physical world have limited the size of this tail. Enter the digital age, where virtual storefronts like Amazon can house the entire world's inventory of books and music and where digital publishing media like blogs allow anyone to create and easily syndicate a micro channel of personalized content.

There are a lot of smart people considering the impact of the long tail on the future of the technology and media industries. However, I don't think there is sufficient thought or dialog going on about the impact of the long tail on society at large. For example, what are the social implications as more and more consumers micro-cast themselves and delve deeper into the dark recesses of the long tail?

My belief is that the long tail will fragment our social structure as we start to lose our common cultural language and frame of reference. Imagine a cocktail party seven years from now where no one has seen the same movie, no one reads the same newspaper, no one listens to the same music, no one watches the same television channel. What will we have to say to one another? Pass the cheese plate please. Frightening image isn't it? Remember, you read it here first. By the way, is anybody out there?