Tony Jeff: Content for The Long Tail

Posted by: Contributing columnist, CLARION LEDGER FEATURE, BUSINESS, September 30, 2015:

527_thumbLast week I introduced the concept of The Long Tail, which originated as a 2004 article in Wired magazine by Chris Anderson. This concept essentially outlined the phenomena that was transforming the distribution of content via the Internet through cheap marketing, cheap distribution, and the ability to search and find specific content.

Even as defined in 2004, this was a powerful concept and foretold the fall of Blockbuster Video and the rise of Netflix and iTunes. More interestingly, the really transformative evolution — the creation of content intended for the long tail — had not even yet begun. The Long Tail in 2004 meant using search engines to find available content and then have it sold and often distributed through the Internet. That was a major disruption but was only a hint at the changes to come.

Nine months after the Wired article defined The Long Tail, YouTube went live. What was established as a way to distribute interesting video content soon became a powerful distribution network. The next year, user-generated content displayed on YouTube became so popular that Time magazine put a YouTube screen with a mirror on their front cover and named us all as the Person of the Year for the creation of user-generated content.

The transformation from The Long Tail as solely a distribution mechanism to an enabler for the creation of vast amounts of new information and new formats for information took place so fast that the revolutionary nature of the change was hard to understand at the time. Radio had matured and dominated for 10 decades, and television ruled for five decades, but Internet-enabled content — from videos to podcasts and soon thereafter to apps — matured and dominated in months and years instead of decades.

Of course, in 2005 the first iterations of this content were still created by people who had the software, equipment and expertise to produce and edit content. The revolution in editing software and the placing of video cameras in every smart phone became the new enabling technology that propelled the content creation to today’s pace. It wasn’t long ago that the cost of entry for a film studio was an expensive building and lots of equipment. Now, the equipment they spent millions to put in place can be replicated with inexpensive cameras — maybe even a smartphone or tablet — and good software. Now literally anyone can create creative content and make it available.

I mentioned last week the quote “It is estimated that a week’s worth of The New York Times has more information than a person was likely to come across in his or her lifetime in the 18th century.” That quote is no doubt true, but that quote was made way back in 2006. A modern version might say that the same amount of information is posted on YouTube in 3 hours or posted through podcasts in a day.

As always happens, entrepreneurs have stepped in to thrive in the new ecosystem created through content creation for the long tail. One vast, but largely off-the-radar medium in this space, is podcasts. A nice little Mississippi company, Podastery is a content creation company that is one of many companies creating incredible amounts of content through podcasts. If you aren’t familiar with podcasts, I strongly urge you to look one up on whatever topic interests you. You’ll be hooked. By the way, in case you don’t know how to find podcasts, there is a purple podcast button on your iPhone screen that you probably didn’t even know was there.

Another evolution of content created for the long tail is in-app distributed content. One of the best examples of this is actually a company we know very well — Mississippi’s Vsporto. I vividly remember the day in February 2010 that Keith Jasper approached Innovate Mississippi with his idea for a 24/7 team-dedicated sports talk app. Frankly, we probably weren’t that encouraging, and we questioned how the content could be created and who would listen 24 hours a day to discussion about just one team. Thankfully Keith had all the right answers, and we’ve been fortunate to work with the VSporto team in the years since. They now have 20 different team coverage apps and are still growing. That’s 20 stations talking about 20 teams 24/7, and that’s a great example of content that could have never have existed without the enabling concept of The Long Tail.

Just 11 years after the concept was first discussed, there is no doubt that it will continue to revolutionize the world and bring us more and more content.

Tony Jeff is the president and CEO of Innovate Mississippi. He can be reached at tjeff@innovate.ms.