Storytelling & Authenticity III - Susie Pratt & Cats

Susie Pratt - Digital Stories & Social Media

Now, I have to apologize for my increasingly sketchy notes, but Susie gave a history of the background to Digital Stories and the current context of social media.
Inspired by project such as the Mass Observation social research organisation, Capture Wales started up before the UGC (User Generated Content) phenomenon. UGC is characterised by giving power back to the individual through easily accessible technology (democratising technology).

Susie talked about the 'Cute cat' theory of the internet and having googled it since this is what I found:

"The Web was invented so physicists could share research papers. Web 2.0 was invented so we could share cute pictures of our cats. The tools of Web 2.0, while designed for mundane uses, can be extremely powerful in the hands of digital activists, especially those in environments where free speech is limited."
ETech blurb for Ethan Zuckerman's presentation.

And there's more info about the cute cat theory talk on Ethan's theory at his blog (where the image below can be found).


Continuing on the furry animal theme, Susie went on talk about the Long Tail, which, again through surreptitious background digging courtesy of Google, I take to refer to Anderson's theory 'The Long Tail' referring to the shift from a hits-based marketplace where limited merchandise (e.g. books, CDs, DVDs) takes physical shelf space (and corresponding shelf cost) to a niche marketplace with unlimited stock lists (think Amazon & iTunes). The Long Tail itself refers to the graph of stocked items against quantity of items sold. The graph tails off pretty quickly. This tail represents the more unusual items which perhaps sell only 3 or 4 copies a year, but putting all these sales together, according to Anderson, amounts to a substantial chunk of profits.
Interestingly though, there seems to be a few parallels between this marketing or economics observation and our shift towards digital storytelling. The Long Tail principle requires that the infrastructure to support virtual shelf space exists (the Internet, postal services) and that people can find the content they want (recommendations, reviews - ie UGC).
And finally, this shift towards niche markets (is it a form of backlash to globalisation?*) is reminiscent of traditional low-technology small communities, defined this time by mutual interests, not geography.
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*Or is it just another marketing ploy? Hmmm...