The Power of Pandora's Blog

If you’ve never heard the old tale of “Pandora’s Box,” it’s about a girl living in a perfect, pain-free world who’s presented with a box that she’s told not to open. Of course, she opens it, and unleashes a fury of emotions onto the world. Along with some good, the box held every negative sentiment not yet known to man—greed, jealousy, anger, etc. The world was never the same, but from then on it was a world of truth… with love comes pain, with joy comes sorrow… that’s how life works. Thanks a bunch, Pandora.
The internet has revolutionized the globe in a similar way. With it comes good and bad, and our society will never be the same. Consider, as an example, digital music distribution. Over the past decade, the industry has evolved considerably from a low-key, free of charge novelty to a closely monitored music industry unto itself. And while websites like iTunes continue to make millions from digital music, there will always be an option to obtain the music for free. As soon as sanctions are put on individual websites, another free-of-charge music site will be created that’s even more sophisticated than the last.
Computer viruses work in much the same way. Although software companies will continue to research and develop protection programs to guard computers against viruses, those who create viruses will always be one step ahead. The problem will never really go away.
This ever-changing model of the internet affects nearly every aspect of our everyday lives, from issues as small a shopping to matters as large as global governments. With endless space and unlimited access, could the internet change the way some regimes monitor their public?
It’s no secret that people have long fought against censorship in countries where opinions are controlled and suppressed. As Americans, we’ve observed from afar as Martial Law has devastated the lives of countless free-thinkers who don’t enjoy the same rights we do. But people in those countries have always found a way to defy authority, even if it’s in small ways.
Take, for example, the animated film “Persepolis,” which tells the true story of a young girl growing up in the tyranny of 1980’s Iran. In the movie, as the main character becomes a teenager, she begins to rebel from the strict rules of Islamic Fundamentalism. She goes into deserted alleyways to buy “Iron Maiden” tapes and wears punk clothing under her traditional garb. Western ideas are treated like illicit drugs by the government, but in the underbelly of Iranian society, they still exist.

(photo from the film "Persepolis", courtesy of www.imdb.com)

Technology has come a long way since the days of punk music on cassette tape, and in turn, so have the methods and spectrum of defying censorship. The internet has served as a portal, for ideas of all kinds, coming both in and out of the country. And now, these efforts which were pioneered so many years ago, like in Persepolis, are happening on a much bigger scale. No situation better illustrates this point than the recent decision of Google to close its search engine in China. The corporation said that it refused to filter search results to comply with the Chinese government, and the decision was met with cheers from human-rights advocates around the world, according to The New York Times. (http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/can-google-beat-china/)

The Google move, for a short time, enabled Chinese citizens to view previously censored web searches, including content concerning the 1989 events in Tiananmen Square. Some people in China reacted to the decision as if they had been temporarily liberated, laying flowers and other tokens at the curb of Google’s Chinese headquarters as a display of respect and remembrance.
(http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/google-01142010100138.html)
(photo courtesy of www.antihippies.wordpress.com/2007/01/)

In a similar act of defiance, authoritative violence in the streets of Myanmar was exposed to the rest of the world by WiFi capable phones in areas where regular video cameras have been restricted by the government. Buddhist monks who protested authoritarian ideals in 2007 were met by immediate and powerful military reaction. This wasn’t the first time that such events have happened in what used to be Burma, and it certainly wasn’t the first time that journalists were stripped of their abilities to report on the atrocities. But in recent occurrences, citizens have acted as undercover journalists, recording the events on their mobile phones, making the images available almost instantly to anyone around the world. (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3666307)
While this method of renegade journalism may put major news outlets at considerable risk, the main goal is the same as any other reporter—to seek truth. The same technology that fascist regimes have used to monitor their citizens is now being used against them. Repressed people are being exposed to the freedoms of far away lands, and they’re exposing their own hardships to the world. The proverbial “Tree in the Woods” is no more… the tree has fallen, and people, via cyberspace, are making sure that the world can hear it hit the ground. (http://www.pcworld.com/article/182362/youtube_direct_why_citizen_journalists_shouldnt_care.html)
Even in the United States, where we enjoy an incredible amount of freedom of speech, we’re able to utilize the internet to communicate more than we were once able to. The World Wide Web extends the megaphone of expression to anyone who chooses to use it, instead of only public figures, like in the past.
Governments that disapprove of such free speech will likely try to suppress these portals as soon as they’re made aware of them, in order maintain control. But, like we’ve seen throughout the short history of the internet, there is no going back. As soon as one venue is eliminated, citizens will develop new and better outlets to express themselves. The world of online communication cannot be closed anymore than Pandora can close her box.

(Photo courtesy of www.cartoonstock.com/.../p/pandora_s_box.asp)

While dictatorships will likely not cease to exist anytime soon, the workings of the web certainly bring much needed power to oppressed peoples. At the moment, those nations share one important fact with us—we are all netizens. We all subscribe to the principles of truth above all else, and from here on, we will use the internet to share with each other and strive for a world of endless free expression and exploration.

Citations for this Analysis:

"Can Google Beat China?." New York Times 15 Jan. 2010, Print.
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/can-google-beat-china/

Newman, Jared. "YouTube Direct: Why Citizen Journalists Should't Care." PC World 17 Nov 2009: n. pag. Web. 31 Jan 2010.
.

"Sneaking into Myanmar." ABC News. Web. 31 Jan 2010. .

"Netizens React Over Google." Radio Free Asia. 15 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan 2010. .

The Long Tail

I work in a flower shop, and each day I go in, it’s my job to maintain the cooler. The cooler is essentially a massive walk-in refrigerator where we store and display our flowers for customers. It’s approximately 15 ft long and can house around 36 buckets of flowers.

Maintaining the cooler (i.e. filling it with new flower shipments, keeping it clean, putting the buckets in order of price) is hardly a challenging task. I always need to start with the roses; they’re by far our biggest seller. In fact, about a quarter of the cooler is devoted to roses, and half of that space is devoted to red roses. After roses come carnations, seasonal mixed bouquets (tulips in spring, holly boughs in winter, etc) and then flowers sold by single stems. Rarely does the arrangement or variety change.

But what happens when a customer comes in and requests something unusual? Perhaps a cymbidium orchid here, a purple calla lily there… we don’t get these requests very often, but we do get them. In fact, I’d say that each day I have to tell a customer we don’t carry an item they’re looking for because it’s not popular enough to keep in stock. I mean, we only have much cooler space and we wouldn’t dare take any of it away from those precious roses!

Chris Anderson understands our shop’s problem, but he proposes that it’s not a problem at all. Instead, he theorizes that our lack of space for unusual products is actually the opportunity to develop an entirely new market. A niche market, made up of items that fall into the long tail.

(Photo Courtesy of USAplayers.com)

The long tail, as Anderson describes it, is the 80% of items in a retail market that don’t qualify as “best” seller

s. For instance, in the music industry, only a certain few artists will have top selling albums that generate enormous global popularity. In a typical music store, space is hardly infinite. So by the time they’re done filling shelves with those music hits that make up a mere 20% of the market, there’s not much area left for that other 80%. Sure, there will be the occasional shopper who wants an album from that 80%, but it simply isn’t worth it to the music shop to stock an item that a) won’t sell well and b) will take space away from the albums that substantially

better.

If the space in a music shop were infinite, though, that 80% could perform impressively well. If the public bought even one of each item on that “tail,” the sales could collectively compete with the top 20% of the market. Th

e industry prospers with an entirely new area of thriving sales, and the consumer benefits with a wealth of v

ariety.

Anderson explains that the internet has provided just such circumstances. The web and online retailers have provided that “infinite” shop space to give those niche markets a chance to shine. Of course, the concept doesn’t apply only to music either. Books, movies, and countless other industries are also benefiting from the long tail principle.

Photo courtesy of Netflix, via www.thelongtail.com

“When you can dramatically lower the costs of connecting supply and demand, it changes not just the number

s, but the entire nature of the market. This is not just a quantitative change, but also a qualitative one, too,” Anderson says in his book, “The Long Tail.” (Anderson, p. 26)

What Anderson has keenly realized is that the internet has not only made buying faster and easier for the consumer, it’s revolutionized capitalism. Supply no longer hinges on significant demand. Now, supply is infinite and waiting for demand. The people will tell retailers what they want, not the other way around.

In a way, doesn’t that make for a more democratic marketplace? A world of consumption by the people, for the people—where every voice is represented and catered to. As this trend of business continues to prove successful, it’s only reasonable to assume other aspects of our culture will follow suit. Perhaps schools won’t teach only English and Spanish, perhaps Japanese could be on the curriculum too for those who want it. Maybe our government won’t be restricted by the principles of a single deity, making a true distinction between church and state. Or, maybe the long tail could influence something as simple as making enough room for Conan and Leno, so viewers can choose what they personally want, not what ratings (or should we say corporate politics) dictate.

Anderson seems to think that we’ve only seen the beginning of this long tail. “Bringing niches within reach reveals latent demand for non-commercial content. Then, as the demand shifts toward the niches, the economics of providing them improve further, and so on, creating a positive feedback loop that will transform entire industries—and the culture—for decades to come.” (Anderson, p. 26)

So here's to a new frontier. One where, hopefully, one day, I can tell people that they can find their fancy orchids online...cause let me tell you, I'm getting tired of the same damn things being in that cooler everyday just as much as my customers are.

Citations for this Analysis

Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 2006. 26. Print.

Anderson, Chris. "The Long Tail." Wired Magazine Oct. 2004: n. pag. Web. 23 Jan 2010. .

"The Long Tail." youtube.com. Web. 23 Jan 2010. .

Anderson, Chris. "The Long Tail." www.thelongtail.com. 11 12 2009. Wired Magazine Blog network, Web. 23 Jan 2010.