Blogging and the Long Tail

The results in the Top Ten Emerging Influential Blogs clearly strengthens the idea pushed by Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail". With the unlimited blogs that we can read today, blogs with the highest set of readers do not necessarily dominate the entire blogosphere.

The recent writing project shows that around 17% of participants cited the number one blog in the listing. The rest have picked on the other 509 blogs. Even if the blog age limit gets removed, I'm certain that the blogs we perceived to be influential will not be as strong as it seems, while there'll be some who will caught us by surprise. Because being influential is not the same as being the most popular.

Yesterday, I exchange blogging ideas with several photojournalists (Aaron Vicencio, Gigie Cruz, Toto Lozano, Paolo Piccones, Tammy David, Nonie Reyes, VJ Villafranca, Cris Sevilla, Rem Zamora, Buck Pago, among others) studying at the Ateneo's Asian Center for Journalism. That 2-hour discussion inspired me to come up with a photo-blog project which I will announce soon. (Thanks to Luz Rimban, formerly of PCIJ, for inviting me and hope our collaboration on the election monitoring project will push through.)

An interesting question asked then was the issue on disclosures by those who generate revenue from their blogs and what do I think about them. I believe that each blogger is responsible for their own blog. Their blog is their own business and can do whatever with it. They are bound by their own rules or of the blog networks and revenue programs that they joined. If the readers don't like what they see, they can easily tune out by not visiting your blog anymore or unsubscribe to your blog feed.

Blogging is also evolving that old time web publishers like me (circa 1997) could either ignore, impose, compete, or embrace sincerely.

Ignore means not caring on how this new publishing medium is evolving. Impose means we insinuate our rules to others and damn those who are not doing their business according to it. Compete is joining the bandwagon and battle it out. Embrace sincerely can be supporting the growth of this medium and be developmental in one's approach. I added the word "sincerely" as this is NOT the one where "I'm willing to teach or help you but no way that you'll be better or popular than me."

We are now living in an age where bestsellers are not the one that rules anymore. Each one of us can pick on the approach that will work best and be responsible for its benefit or consequences. Peace!

98 Percent Rule

Last Wednesday, I availed of the Birthday Month discount that Fully Booked (bookstore) gives to its cardholders. This entitled me to a 40% discount for cash and 35% for credit card on any imported item sold in the bookstore. It was a toss-up between Moleskin notebooks (available in Fully Booked Rockwell) or traditional books. As my Author's Avenue Leatherbound Journal still sufficient, I availed of traditional books instead.

The book that caught my attention is Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail". (It seems that the Amazon link to the book version I have is not available in their site right now. Oh well..)

As I started reading it yesterday, I realized that the right materials are coming up for further enhancing my Blogging 101 Workshop (blogging101workshop) book project that is coming out this April 10.

The Introduction portion of the book discussed the 98 percent rule. Upon reading it, I now enjoy giving a pop quiz to friends like this. "Amazon.com is known for having a huge listing of book titles. In your estimate, at least how many of the titles there has one unit sale per quarter?"

As I spend nearly one hundred thousand pesos in bookstores last year (according to my customer loyalty cards in 3 bookstores), that question really intrigued me and made me guest of no more than 80%.

It shocked me that the answer turned out as 98%. That means, if my book sells one piece per quarter, that is normal. That is because of unlimited choices available today and where markets are further segmented. This means that perhaps my books are not within the taste range of blogparteeh07 attendees but it caters to a niche segment who may find specific value in the work I do. The more content or product selections you have, the more segments you can accommodate.

So we are now living in an age where bestsellers are not the one that really rules. The Long Tail talks about a situation where all of us are offered with unlimited choices, as everything becomes available to everyone. Service providers who offer products or services that intends to empower the small players (like Google AdSense - although Google has grown big already) may find themselves equally profitable and even more powerful than a handful of big ad networks.

This means that if you want to succeed, like in the case of blogging, having collective strength will allow you to compete fiercely with mainstream big players. A classic example here are blogging networks like PinoyTech Blog versus Inquirer as a source of technology development information. Instead of journalists, traditional consumers and technology connectors are the ones supplying the content and analyzing industry developments.

With that example, if used as an inspiration, I can revive a blog like W3O and have more chances of success, by getting more female players (mostly from the club member roster), developing them into professional bloggers, involved in the process. This time, not just contributors pro-bono, but actually compensating them for it. I'm trying to push this further as I inquire the possibility of getting the Philippine channel in CitizenBay. With an advertising program being established, perhaps this can work.