You've never thrown a book across the room?

I love feedback. Always have. Never have I shied from drawing on printed pages or yelling at a screen. I saw the Lone Ranger in the theater. Some guy mowed him down with gunfire in a canyon, said, 'That's the end of them.' Indignant, unbelieving, I stood in my seat to shout, "No, it's not because he's the Lone Ranger.' I was 5.

The whole theater laughed. Chastised, but not swayed, I bellow my indignanty to this day - forget the conceit of one-way media.

Thus exists the complication of interactivity. Kiousis and McMillan and Downes all understand that this term lacks cohesion, perhaps lacks substance. They hedge by limiting it to New Media, even while admitting what we all know in common sense: that interactive transcends all media in some form. The problem with the Internet lies in the frightening level of variance surrounding such interactivity. Maybe I can shout at a movie screen or MST3k can make a TV show of cinema commentary or an editorial can comment on film, but there's a quick curve to our modes of interactivity in most media. These articles demonstrate that the Long Tail effect applies to the variance of interactivity itself when applied to the Net.

Every time I turn on my computer some new form, speed, level, intensity of interactivity breaks through. Like Downes and McMillian, I struggle to sort all the definitions before me. The numerous forms of interactivity threaten my very understanding of the term. Unlike Kiousis and the others, I'm not frightened by this. I doubt the practical use of interactivity as many communication theorists have narrowed the construct. If we deny speaking as interactive unless it uses technology we have only dug ourselves into a hole of our illusion, blinding authenticity with a desire to restrict definition.

Much like every internet user, just like porn, I know interactivity when I see it. That interaction requires engagement with synthesis of another, but that may be speech, print, film, or hypertext. We should be wary of narrowing the term too much just because the modes it houses has grown. Perhaps what is actually needed is a theory that develops new senses of interactivity to accommodate the growth of variances.

This touches again on the Long Tail. I believe in the creative model offered therein, though we must understand that it is finite, even if larger than our current model. And Chris Anderson never states that it is infinite, but his energy belies the reality that even a Long Tail deals in scarcity, just a different form than physical retail. More art will sell, but more content producers will also flood the market. The Long Tail doesn't assure that you will be the best at your niche, just that your niche will have a fighting change comparatively.

The new search model says you’ll be found, but they still might not like what you have to offer. Moreover, poor product will be increasingly revealed and reviled by the same rating model.