I forgot the title...let's go with...Fat Tuesday!

"As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought." I don't know if I agree with that statement from The Long Tail article. I think that recommendations make people think they are off the beaten path, but they're really just buying the same previously unheard of books or movies that everyone else is now buying.

Recommendations do make it possible to find out about things that you would have never heard of, but something about predicting what I will like just rubs me the wrong way. It is neat though.

I do agree with this quote from the article, "The industry has a poor sense of what people want. Indeed, we have a poor sense of what we want. We assume, for instance, that there is little demand for the stuff that isn't carried by Wal-Mart and other major retailers; if people wanted it, surely it would be sold."
And I believe that's why I don't like recommendations.
Anyway, back to the topic. I do think that The Long Tail has accurate expectations for the future. It's based on building on the past. I think that the idea of "Pull consumers down the tail with lower prices" will work. I always find myself browsing and then buying 99 cent books off of half.com. It's just 99 cents. They're pulling me down the tail. And I admit, I do see the advantages of recommendations for smaller films and labels.

This Long Tail is an interactive way to make people spend money so others will make money. The reviews of an item allow people to interact to make a decision. Maybe a mini chat could be added to each review section in case somebody wanted to ask a question like, "Is this a good date movie?" or "Can I watch this with my parents?"

Spiro's article states that generally "interactivity is associated with new communication technologies especially the internet and World Wide Web. In some arenas, the level of interactivity varies across media, usually anchored in its ability to facilitate interactions similar to interpersonal communication."

In the Defining Interactivity article, more interactive aspects of new media were brought up. The concept of virtual communities was discussed, but the question was raised if this was more interactive or just communication in a different form? The same question was raised for e-commerce.

I think that interactivity will increase, but I think that new forms of interactivity will be slow to be developed. I agree that now people are just learning to do things in new ways, in different spaces, but it's still pretty basic communication. Just more of it.