Comments on: Musing about ranking and long tails http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/ a blog about information Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:37:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Stephen Smoliar http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5599 Stephen Smoliar Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:54:43 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5599 JP, there is one fly in the ointment, at least on this side of the pond. It's called the Musicians' Union! I had some discussions with an ensemble here in San Francisco that specializes in contemporary music (the "serious" kind, not hip-hop). They discovered that most of the audience cannot remember the names of any of the composers they have heard the morning after the concert (talk about being way out there on the Long Tail)! Needless to day, there would be all sorts of ways to use the Internet to familiarize the general public with these composers, including Web sites with audio links and podcasts; but there is a whole morass of problems surrounding royalties and licensces from ASCAP or BMI. Ironically, the Philharmonia Baroque has been doing some very innovate things with both their Web site and a volunteer podcaster (at least I cannot imagine that he is being paid for his efforts); but the Union may yet push back on this. Perhaps the Long Tail runs into trouble when, even though the pie is very small, you still have people fixated on fighting over the size of their own slices! JP, there is one fly in the ointment, at least on this side of the pond. It’s called the Musicians’ Union! I had some discussions with an ensemble here in San Francisco that specializes in contemporary music (the “serious” kind, not hip-hop). They discovered that most of the audience cannot remember the names of any of the composers they have heard the morning after the concert (talk about being way out there on the Long Tail)! Needless to day, there would be all sorts of ways to use the Internet to familiarize the general public with these composers, including Web sites with audio links and podcasts; but there is a whole morass of problems surrounding royalties and licensces from ASCAP or BMI. Ironically, the Philharmonia Baroque has been doing some very innovate things with both their Web site and a volunteer podcaster (at least I cannot imagine that he is being paid for his efforts); but the Union may yet push back on this. Perhaps the Long Tail runs into trouble when, even though the pie is very small, you still have people fixated on fighting over the size of their own slices!

]]> By: JP http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5575 JP Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:44:54 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5575 Sounds to me like there is an opportunity for a business there. Opera seems to be a classic Long Tail deal. I like opera, but not to the extent I could call it a passion. Anyone else interested in taking up Stephen's challenge? Sounds to me like there is an opportunity for a business there. Opera seems to be a classic Long Tail deal. I like opera, but not to the extent I could call it a passion. Anyone else interested in taking up Stephen’s challenge?

]]> By: Stephen Smoliar http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5573 Stephen Smoliar Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:30:10 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5573 I believe that "we insist on looking at the Long Tail World through the eyes of a Hit Culture" because that is basically the mindset we bring to our commercial endeavors. I write as someone who basically "lives on the Long Tail." I have abandoned bookstores because just about any book I want to buy is a low-demand item; and the Internet is just better at selling those things than bookstores are. On the other hand I believe that it is highly unlikely that television distributors (cable or satellite) will ever accommodate my Long Tail needs. Here is my argument: Opera has taken a real beating with television distribution (at least in the United States). Not counting what Public Television has done, in the earliest days of cable, the Arts & Entertainment channel offered a fair amount of opera and was, for the most part, sensible about commercial breaks. Then Bravo came along, around the time that A&E was beginning to pull away from content that was too "heavy" and offered opera WITHOUT commercials. When I left for a four-year stint in Singapore, Bravo was still a really good source for "high culture" content; but, by the time I returned, Bravo had commercials and was no longer showing "heavy" content. Meanwhile, the closest A&E got was "Breakfast with the Arts." Then a new channel called Ovation was launched, and they jumped in with an impressive library of opera on video. Ovation bit the dust after a couple of years of not being able to sell time for commercials, "Breakfast with the Arts" has gotten far more "light-weight," and Bravo now sustains itself with reality programming. I am sure that there is still a community of opera lovers out on that Long Tail, but it is easier to buy opera DVDs on Amazon than to expect to see anything through your cable. (At least Comcast has allocated one of their audio channels for opera music!) I believe that “we insist on looking at the Long Tail World through the eyes of a Hit Culture” because that is basically the mindset we bring to our commercial endeavors. I write as someone who basically “lives on the Long Tail.” I have abandoned bookstores because just about any book I want to buy is a low-demand item; and the Internet is just better at selling those things than bookstores are. On the other hand I believe that it is highly unlikely that television distributors (cable or satellite) will ever accommodate my Long Tail needs. Here is my argument:

Opera has taken a real beating with television distribution (at least in the United States). Not counting what Public Television has done, in the earliest days of cable, the Arts & Entertainment channel offered a fair amount of opera and was, for the most part, sensible about commercial breaks. Then Bravo came along, around the time that A&E was beginning to pull away from content that was too “heavy” and offered opera WITHOUT commercials. When I left for a four-year stint in Singapore, Bravo was still a really good source for “high culture” content; but, by the time I returned, Bravo had commercials and was no longer showing “heavy” content. Meanwhile, the closest A&E got was “Breakfast with the Arts.” Then a new channel called Ovation was launched, and they jumped in with an impressive library of opera on video. Ovation bit the dust after a couple of years of not being able to sell time for commercials, “Breakfast with the Arts” has gotten far more “light-weight,” and Bravo now sustains itself with reality programming. I am sure that there is still a community of opera lovers out on that Long Tail, but it is easier to buy opera DVDs on Amazon than to expect to see anything through your cable. (At least Comcast has allocated one of their audio channels for opera music!)

]]> By: Stu http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5403 Stu Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:22:15 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5403 Very interesting bit of research and a very positive conclusion for the web in general. Puts the entire SEO industry into a questionable light too... Am keen to avoid confirmation bias though ;-) so I guess the question is whether their model of search and browse can be extrapolated to the way people navigate the blogosphere which, as Seb notes above, is more typically by recommendation (either explicit or implicit via links). This means the way bloggers (esp. the A list) recommend and link to other blogs is critical -- it's the 'pagerank' of the blogosphere. Who knows whether this human, non-algorithmic process is more or less equitable than Google's. Hopefully Fortunato et al will figure it out... Very interesting bit of research and a very positive conclusion for the web in general. Puts the entire SEO industry into a questionable light too…

Am keen to avoid confirmation bias though ;-) so I guess the question is whether their model of search and browse can be extrapolated to the way people navigate the blogosphere which, as Seb notes above, is more typically by recommendation (either explicit or implicit via links).

This means the way bloggers (esp. the A list) recommend and link to other blogs is critical — it’s the ‘pagerank’ of the blogosphere. Who knows whether this human, non-algorithmic process is more or less equitable than Google’s. Hopefully Fortunato et al will figure it out…

]]> By: Sean http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5400 Sean Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:54:46 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5400 Fractals. It's all about fractals. One community's hit is another's tail. And most of humanity spends their life zooming in and out as their mood or moment dictates. One moment I'm reading 'Confused' alongside a few thousand (?) others and the next I'm watching the World Cup Final with half of humanity (and I don't even like football!) - and both are worthwhile. Fractals and power laws. (How's that for hubristic reductionism?!) Fractals. It’s all about fractals. One community’s hit is another’s tail. And most of humanity spends their life zooming in and out as their mood or moment dictates. One moment I’m reading ‘Confused’ alongside a few thousand (?) others and the next I’m watching the World Cup Final with half of humanity (and I don’t even like football!) – and both are worthwhile. Fractals and power laws. (How’s that for hubristic reductionism?!)

]]> By: JP http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5376 JP Wed, 23 Aug 2006 06:40:10 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5376 Absolutely, Seb. You made my day. And it's still early in the UK! You've catalysed me into writing a related post, which I shall do sometime today. Welcome to the conversation. Absolutely, Seb. You made my day. And it’s still early in the UK! You’ve catalysed me into writing a related post, which I shall do sometime today. Welcome to the conversation.

]]> By: Seb Schmoller http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/comment-page-1/#comment-5373 Seb Schmoller Wed, 23 Aug 2006 06:07:26 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/08/22/musing-about-ranking-and-long-tails/#comment-5373 Fortunato and co also gave a paper at the WWW2006 conference called "The Egalitarian Effects of Search Engines". This quote from it makes a related point: "the net effect of search engines on traffic appears to produce an egalitarian effect, smearing out the traffic attraction of high-degree pages … search engines lead users to visiting about 20% more pages than surfing alone … contrary to intuition and prior hypotheses, the use of search engines contributes to a more level playing field, in which new Web sites have a greater chance of being discovered and thus of acquiring links and popularity. " The full paper is freely availabe here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cs/pdf/0511/0511005.pdf and their "Decoding the structure of the WWW: facts versus sampling biases" is also interesting: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cs/pdf/0511/0511035v1.pdf And I suppose that my commenting on this post, because someone I know and trust said "hey, you should read Confused of Calcutta" (he was quite right), and then thinking, "I seem to remember quoting Fortunato in some contract reasearch I did last year for the ESRC", and then finding another Fortunato paper, and putting the links into this post, is an example of exactly the sort of thing that you (and Fortunato) are talking about. Seb Fortunato and co also gave a paper at the WWW2006 conference called “The Egalitarian Effects of Search Engines”. This quote from it makes a related point:

“the net effect of search engines on traffic appears to produce an egalitarian effect, smearing out the traffic attraction of high-degree pages … search engines lead users to visiting about 20% more pages than surfing alone … contrary to intuition and prior hypotheses, the use of search engines contributes to a more level playing field, in which new Web sites have a greater chance of being discovered and thus of acquiring links and popularity. ”

The full paper is freely availabe here:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cs/pdf/0511/0511005.pdf and their “Decoding the structure of the WWW: facts versus
sampling biases” is also interesting:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cs/pdf/0511/0511035v1.pdf

And I suppose that my commenting on this post, because someone I know and trust said “hey, you should read Confused of Calcutta” (he was quite right), and then thinking, “I seem to remember quoting Fortunato in some contract reasearch I did last year for the ESRC”, and then finding another Fortunato paper, and putting the links into this post, is an example of exactly the sort of thing that you (and Fortunato) are talking about.

Seb

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