The 'Long Tail' - Not Always and Automatically a Good Thing

I find the concept of the "Long Tail" makes a lot of sense.  The idea is that the Internet will replace old-style hit-driven broadcast mass media with particularized, segmented media.  Chris Anderson coined the term and made the idea popular, and I think it's especially relevant to my industry of financial information: surrounding every instrument you can trade is a cloud of facts and opinion, a "long tail" that stretches out around the world and over time; and that long tail of information is a gold mine for the resolute investor or trader.

The Long Tail has a dark side, however.  Just as music lovers or movie fans will be able to indulge their tastes, so will fringe thinkers, paranoics and conspiracy theorists.  Not only will they find an endless diet of tidbits to whet their appetites, they can add to the collection with their own blogs.

A case in point is the endlessly-echoing phony fuss about President-elect Barack Obama's citizenship and eligibility for the Presidency.  The idea that he's not eligible, based on the constitutional requirements, has been debunked repeatedly and authoritatively.  We can all roll our eyes and make tinfoil-hat jokes about the loopy fantasists who keep going on about this, but I think it's kind of sinister.  It's so bad, they call the officials in Hawaii in the middle of the night.  In my darkest moments I draw line connecting this nonsense to older, scarier myths, fakeries that once seemed laughable but now are drenched in horror.  People used to laugh about the supposedly-harmless nut cases who believed the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

There is opportunity here, though, for the right kind of organization with the right mission.  As news organizations have lost their distribution clout, and their business model, they've gained an opportunity to show how they do their jobs.  The best of them will make the Internet transition (even though it means being a smaller business) and come out on top.  Look at the Los Angeles Times 'data desk' -- a fabulous example of how a trusted news organization, if it 'gets' the opportunity, can raise its game and bring a new level of transparency, depth and credibility to news.  That's our best hope for dispersing the nuttiness.