How Media Operates

Digital distribution will eventually, I believe, take over television, music and radio. In "The Long Tail" article by Chris Anderson, he is wanting to get the message out about digital distribution and the effect it is going to have on us. He talks about hit-driven economics, which is a period where we lack shelf space, dvd's and cd's are being produced at a fast pace and we have no space for them (Anderson,2004). When Chris Anderson talks about shelf space in "The Long Tail" video, he is talking about the fact that television and stores only have so much space to place their inventory. But when you think about Netflix or other online dvd rental sites, they almost have infinite "shelf space". They have the capacity to store thousands upon thousands of dvd's that normally are not going to be available to people walking into dvd rental stores. So when your looking for an almost obsolete dvd that has not been found anywhere you turn to the internet, because the internet has almost anything and everything and it is at the click of a button. Chris Anderson also talks about in his video of "The Long Tail", the powerlaw, which relies on the 80/20 rule, for example, he states that 20% of the population had 80% of the land (Anderson, 2006). So it means that there is alot of land that is divided up between that 20% and that there is only so much land and only so many people. This falls back to having enough shelf space, there is only so much space and alot of dvd's. It is amazing to me that Netflix, as Chris Anderson mentions in his video of "The Long Tail", carries more movies than Blockbuster (Anderson, 2006). To me it seems that since blockbuster has been around for so long that it would ultimately have more titles that Netflix. But again this probably relates again to shelf space.
In the article "The Long Tail", also by Chris Anderson, he writes that you need at least 1500 people to come see a movie in the theatre in order to pay for the rent for that screen, or you need to sell at least two cd's per year for that artist in order to make it worth carrying in the store (Anderson, 2004) This is in the favor of online companies because if the movie theatre or music store can't stay open, it means more business for them!! They now have more people visiting their sites to purchase from them. Also it is becoming more convenient to purchase online and at home instead of having to drive somewhere to get the same thing you can purchase online and for possibly cheaper than in the store.
If you are wondering what "The Long Tail" is, it is a way of telling you that there is far more inventory being sold online than in stores (See attached Graph).
One big downfall to digital distribution is the fact that there are probably going to be more lawsuits, due to the copyright agreements. In an article I read on the website "CNET", it states that Grooveshark, an online record company is being sued by Universal Music Group because Universal Music Group is saying that Grooveshark has illegal copies of songs (Rosoff, 2010). This it seems is going to be the biggest problem. Companies out there are going to get a hold of legal and illegal copies of movies and music so that they can go back and sell them and in return make money. There will have to be closer monitoring if possible on digital distribution. Also I think that having enough shelf space could hurt current businesses. They are competing with online businesses that have an infinite amount of it. There is really no way of a music store today to be able to hold as many music cd's that an online store can, their store would be huge and hard to manage. Although it may not be impossible, but it would be hard to accomplish.

The Long Tail

Here is a link if you would like more information on Digital Distribution.....
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-9887085-27.html

References

Anderson, Chris. (2004). "The Long Tail". WIRED Magazine, Issue 12.10. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=2&topic=tail&topic_set=.

Anderson, Chris. (2006). "Identifying The Long Tail". [Video File]. Video Posted to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yku0GTrcuw&feature=fvw.

Rosoff, M. (2010). "Grooveshark Sued by Another Record Company". CNET News. Retrieved from
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10432132-27.html?tag=mncol;posts

"The Long Tail". (2004) [Graphical illustration]. Retrieved from
http://www.wired.com/wired/images.html?issue=12.10&topic=tail&img=2.