The following is a selection of comments culled from Twitter over the past 12 hours.
everetttrue does anyone else find Chris Anderson groundlessly optimistic?
angusbatey@everetttrue You mean the Wired bloke? "Hopelessly naive" would be closer to the mark. Or maybe "head-in-clouds dangerous", when it comes to his vision of a world where facilitators get rich and creators starve. (Not that that's how he sees it, I don't suppose.)
everetttrue yep, that's the one. seems odd to me that he's taken serious, but he's a good talking point nonetheless
angusbatey@everetttrue I'm beginning to understand the reasons for the rise of people like that. He helps make people whose relationship to creativity is essentially parasitical feel like they're riders at the gates of the new dawn. Elevating him to guru status makes them all feel validated. The medium becomes more important than the message. Don't worry - one day a rain will come and wash these electronic streets. I fucking hope. Though the borders look parched right now and too many plants are dying.
everetttrue Anyone read The Cult Of The Amateur? Care to summarise?
angusbatey@everetttrue TCotA condensed: "Anderson is wrong! Creators' rights are good! More people should agree with me, but I'm not quite sure why." It was a book I felt needed to be written, but by someone else. He's got his heart in the right place but spends too long wringing his hands and not enough coming up with solutions.
seaninsound@everetttrue Internet Life Is Rubbish. Or just read the first chapter or an int with him.
brainlove@everetttrue Summary: the internet is the end of anyone knowing what is good any more in a rising tide of home-made trash.
INTERMISSION (lots of twitpics from lilyroseallen)
susioneill@everetttrue Will Page @ PRS disproved Anderson's Long Tail theory and the freemium model doesnt work in a low advertising downturn
everetttrue interesting link Long Tail Theory contradicted
everetttrue i've just had my followers increased by 27% in the space of a few hours. Are you all here for Chris Anderson? Bourdieu? The Cult Of The Amateur? Or was it the mention on Drowned In Sound?
It can be tough sharing your name with such a fellow. Makes googling yourself that much less enjoyable too.
ReplyDeleteA Starving Creator in Worthing
No, wait. It was you I was referring to...
ReplyDeleteLooks like Will Page is being as secretive about his data as Anderson. Let see some decent academic work on this eh? The first rule of research is that if you have a point to make about a so-called 'study' you need to make the source data available so people can engage with the basis for your argument.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. I'm finding it difficult to get to the bottom of Will Page's data myself. My own personal methods may be a little unconventional - provoke first, verify later - but I do intend to back everything up with some good solid research. And I also intend to follow where the research leads me...
ReplyDeleteThis is the closest thing to data, i've found so far. http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/11/exclusive_interview_will_page.html
ReplyDeleteThere are some hints here. Page is focused on 'value' and the economic viability of the tail. This is fair enough from a business point of view, but i find some of his arguments around the Top 14 etc... a bit bogus. The subtext of his rave is that he thinks digital track culture is a backwards step (why would someone buy a whole album when they can just buy one track, etc... etc...). The over arching problem, it seems to me is that he is not looking at the new ways in which value can be created yada yada... He's very fixed on traditional modes of value creation in music.
It is almost as if he wishes he tail was shorter.. all this content that hardly sells anything etc... Well what's so new about that. Plenty of physical releases were consigned to the bargain bins before the internet, not to mention the swathe of self-released vanity published titles. Perhaps its just that the non-sellers are more visible now?
As a musician, I find all of this quite amusing. Very few people have every earned any real money out of original music. Before the internet there were indie labels that didn't pay royalties for the thousands of units they were shifting of your work... You'd be better of getting paid for 100 sales than nothing for 10,000. Sorry, getting cynical now, time to sign off!!!