Thursday, July 27, 2006

Night of the Living Tail

In celebration of the publication of Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail, I've uploaded a video that Peter Hirshberg, Bob Kalsey, and I did last year. However big the threat, (see Nick Carr for the latest in the debunking and rebunking of the premise), it's clear that something new and unsettling is afoot. Which gave Peter the idea of treating it all as a trailer to a horror picture.

In this case, our premise was that the established mainstream media and software industry was in danger. If Hollywood sees a threat, the first call is to the lawyers; the second call is to the marketing department: maybe there's a movie and a profit in here somewhere. This is the trailer to that movie.

In true Hollywood fashion, this movie is not an adaptation of Chris's book or the magazine article at its core. The movie is simply, "inspired by... "




(tags: Web 2.0, Long Tail, Anderson, Humor, Movies, TV)

8 comments:

Enric said...

Very good re-vision of "War of the Worlds" preamble.

Faux Press said...

Spot on. In every way. Needed a laugh this afternoon. Vlog on.

Anonymous said...

I did not see that much in the video that related to The Long Tail book, but that's just me.

Michael Markman said...

Not just you. Chris Anderson told us the same thing when he saw it. Then he asked for a copy, which he uses in his presentations. I agree with both of you: there's very little in the video that relates to the Long Tail. We just liked the title.

The phenomenon of The Long Tail is just one part of a series of disruptive transformations that I lack the intellectual rigor to comprehend. That's why I do comedy, not analysis.

Edmund Yeo said...

Ah well, it's still great stuff. I like it.

Anonymous said...

I would love a downloadable version that I could mashup / remix a little myself. (In the context of promoting Lessigs Read/Write Culture meme)?

Fang

Michael Markman said...

mike: Sorry, I can't make that available. We've licensed the stock footage for this one title.

Unknown said...

Hi,

A possible use for this as a reference in an Australian music research project. Possible to email me about this? Many thanks.