1:34am and I’m finally done with a couple of work things. I wander over to Chris “Long Tail” Anderson’s The Rise and Fall of the Hit (via Fred), a look at the days before the blockbuster and a claim that we are now in the era of the niche:

The mass market is yielding to a million minimarkets. Hits will always be with us, but they have lost their monopoly. Blockbusters must now compete with an infinite number of niche offerings, which can be distributed just as easily. Justin Timberlake still makes albums, but today he has thousands of bands on MySpace as rivals.

Meanwhile, I’m flipping channels on the TV, trying to find something to occupy the mind. It settles on boxing while I head to Sir Ken Robinson’s Talk at TED on education (also via Fred). Very interesting talk. It seems rambling and casual at first, but then you realize he’s saying some very profound things in some very simple ways.

And this is when it comes together: I have a couple of hundred channels of digital TV in front of me, including all HBO and Showtime channels, as well as on-demand allowing me to watch just about everything offered by the broadcasters, but I’m electing to watch, recommend, and write about a very niche thing, a talk at a conference of 1000 people.

Long tail indeed.