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what role does mainstream have in a onlinecommunity ?

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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 -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 somewhat crossposted on toothlesstiger.com

Comments

  • Photo_15_thumb
    Quote_left
    I just ordered The Long Tale on Amazon, have to read it too

  • Blueshirt2_thumb
    Quote_left
    I don't know that mainstream doesn't exist... it's more that community is making it's own mainstream. However, community is usually influenced in some way by mainstream; take a look at the number of people who made Joker avatars for the release of The Dark Knight for their blogs. Online behaviour usually imitates other things existing within it - someone does it, and if someone else does it, it's viral.

    As to relevancy; in a music community, relevancy should be based upon what the music community does for its users. Plenty of bands think having many thousands of myspace "friends" is helping their career. In reality, it doesn't really help at all. It doesn't sell records very often, and most of the people adding you as a band are other bands.

    To me, though, relevancy is achieved when two people or entities come together on the internet. So, if someone visits my Myspace page, likes my music, adds me as a friend _and_ contacts me telling me they like what I do, it's more relevant; we have a connection now, they may buy a record, or we may just become friends in the long run. This happens in probably about 1 out of 10 cases of most online communities, though.

    So to close up my little diatribe here, I'd say that to be relevant, you must present relevant data to your users, and that data must be well-generated from your providers (bands are providers, listeners are users). The key is to work with what someone already knows they like, and to show them what else exists within that preconception.


  • Koblo_water-sm_thumb
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    The idea of the Long Tail suggests that the mainstream only existed when a first order filter was in place. This filter being" how much shelf space is there". Choices had been dictated by the retailer/marketeers....so the bell curve, of which the "mainstream" is the big part of the bell existed because we had been dictated to.

    So now we let the community pick what they want !

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