what role does mainstream have in a onlinecommunity ?

On July 16th, 2008 Henriette Weber wrote:

answer: mainstream doesn't exist in a community - I would even argue that there is no mainstream anymore.

Anyways I have been researching a bit during the last couple of days, due to my work with Koblo.com -and the key that I found was in good'old Chris Andersons book "the long tail" where he basically argues the winning situation the niche's has over mainstream - and he even uses music communities as an example ! -

So the argument is battled between the mainstream hitlist vs. recommendation algorithms in a community.

Somehow as the mainstream disappears, the hitlists becomes irrelevant. Or to put it more clearly - I don't care about a pop chart hitlists if I am into rock'n'roll. Or maybe I do, but I will always get more relevant data if I get a rock'n'roll hitlist..

So RELEVANCY algorithms are key for music communities - as relevancy algorithms are key on amazon.com for books.

so in general hitlists are becoming obsolete - unless they are relevant and "up close" to the users.

it's kindoff the same idea that is spreading like a wildfire through the advertisement industry - to make ads seem like "relevant information" to the users so they wont notise that it's an ad...

smart thinking =)

oh - this is crossposted on the koblo blog

[communities, music, relevancy, thelongtail, hitlists, recommendation] [3 comments]

Punk Rock is free creativity on the web

On July 1st, 2008 Henriette Weber wrote:

Punk rock changed the game. Punk rock said " you have all your talents, but you don't need to use them the "old ways" to actually achieve what you want in your life".

all that mattered in Punk Rock was that you had something to say, it didn't really matter if you played your instrument in the best way possible, as long as you had the courage to speak your ways of the world.

There are huge similarities between punk rock and the web. One of them is that because the entry of creativity was lowered massively with the punk rock outburst in the 70s... The entry of creativity is very low right now because of the web. because of the long tail (Chris Anderson also covers this subject in his "the long tail".)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/negrilli/2249288405

Most importantly the web has democratized the tools of creativity, - no wait it has made them completely free!... No matter what content you would like to put out there, what ideas you have, you can spur them of in a minute. So there are HUGE resemblances between Punk Rock and the web. Maybe it has spurred from the same rebellion against the "right thing" - or "normality"..?

[creativity, reboot, free, tools, punkrock, speech, music, entryofcreativity, democratization, ideas, normality, rock band] [14 comments]