Mass Niche - the long tail by the long tail (how creative crowds are taking front seats in the variety economy)
'185 text + 37 none text' paragraphs, 13204 words, 78654 characters(incl. spaces) - About 40 pages
Created 177 days ago, Updated 70 days ago
-
This book(?) is based on a small book that was published in Korean in November 2006. The paper version is being sold as a supplementary book with Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, and the ebook version is sold separately.
-
I began writing the English version, thinking that the book had ideas relevant to readers outside Korea. The variety created by the small players in the long tail will change the shape of our free market. The case studies are all Korean, but the key theme in the book is not Korea-specific. (Hopefully the Korean case studies are interesting to some, as Korea is being cited widely as very advanced in technology adoption.)
-
This is a book in process. I would like to call it an open-beta book. Originally, I planned to publish as a POD. POD is a great innovation for publishing, and there are already great services like lulu.com. But our problem was translation. Initially, I had someone (and another later) do it, but I did not like it. I am not a naitive speaker, but it was clear that the translation did not communicate the material well enough.
-
Also, my own thoughts about the theme of the book evolved as time went by. When we first began the Korean book project, our goal was to broaden Long Tail’s application to more traditional brick and mortar industries. This was actually a request by the editor in charge of Korean edition of The Long Tail, who thought the book did not cover traditional industries enough. She was worried that the book only appeal to the techy types but not to the executives. I liked that goal, and it still is an important goal of this writing. However, it became clear that I was especially interested in the role of individuals or small businesses in producing the long tail of products. And I did not understand clearly what this was about until after we publish the Korean book and gave more than 20 related presentations to executives, web community leaders, journalists, students, etc.
-
So it needed revision as well as translation. I almost gave up and did nothing for the second half of 2007, working on other projects (venture building and consulting). Worried that I might never publish it (if I want to do it the old way), I finally decided to experiment a new kind of writing and publishing. Here is my plan for now.
- Put it online.
- Revise. It could be polishing, removing, or adding.
- Get comments. They could be about English or about contents.
- Finalize and publish as a packaged book (paper book and/or e-book).
- Or leave it online. Or both.
-
At the moment I don’t know whether I would ever finish it and make a packaged book (paper and/or electronic) or just have this as a constant beta. Anyway, I would appreciate any feedback and comments. If you want to know my thoughts in various topics, mostly related to innovation, visit http://hyokon.com.
1 Comments
13203 words...