COMMENT in response to Cassandra Brown's Blog

Comment in response to ' Nouveau Niche is the new black':

Cassie, I found your blogg a very interesting read pointing out many of the key elements which centralize the transition of society into a niche market. As you effectively point out in your blogg, it is evolution of the internet which makes these previously hard to reach paths so much more accessible. I myself, have first hand experience of this shift to the tailored market, through my evolving taste in music. Without the tools of the internet there is no way I would have the same interest in music as I do today. The way I have discovered most of favorite bands is through a process. I would hear songs through sites such as Myspace, enjoy the sound, and then looked further into their band for other songs as well as similar bands/artists. This online transparency prominent in the virtual world (Trendwatching, 2005) has exposed me to a new realm of artists and bands I had never heard of before, simply because they weren’t products of commercialization. I also agree strongly with the points you made about the markets tailoring to the individual needs of consumers. You effectively describe the shift throughout the markets, with even mass products subject to individualization. Ipods, Myspace sites, Nokia handsets and Mini Coopers all provide options to be customized and personalized. (Trendwatching, 2005) It is also interesting to note the point that Anderson makes in his article, The Long Tail, which discusses “many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and- demand matching – a market response to inefficient distribution.”(2006) Now that we control what we can access through online sites, we are no longer products of mass distribution. We have the power.

Reference:
Anderson, C. 2004. The Long Tail. Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=5&topic=tail&topic_set= (Accessed April 2, 2008)

Trendwatching. 2005. Nouveau Niche. http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/NOUVEAU_NICHE.htm (Accessed April 2, 2008)