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Domain: longtail.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to longtail.com.

Comments · 3

  1. Re:Aren't fusion plants around the corner? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative · on Economy Puts US Nuclear Reactors Back In Doubt

    Do you have a source? That "too cheap to meter" quote keeps getting thrown around but is never directly attributed to anyone.

    A quick google search turns up the source; The truth about "too cheap to meter". As usual with famous quotes, it was taken out of context.

    The whole quote is part of a slightly over-the-top space-age rhapsody on the ability of science and technology to improve the world, which he gave in a speech to science writers in New York: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter; will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history; will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age. This is the forecast of an age of peace."

    Ironically, it turns out he was probably referring to fusion power.

    And nobody would have thought a nuclear plant would be cheaper to *build* than a coal one.

    But it is cheaper to operate, not having to deliver and dispose of thousands of tons of coal and ash every year .

  2. The Long Tail angle by xoundmind · · Score: 1 · on Newspapers Are Dying, Blog At 11

    Chris Anderson recently posted an interesting analysis of the industry's revenues.

  3. Must just be the majors. The indies are thriving. by linuxbaby · · Score: 5, Interesting · on iTunes Sales 'Collapsing'
    Here in the land of the truly independent artists, iTunes sales have almost DOUBLED. iTunes is paying our clients almost a million dollars a MONTH in sales, now. (My company is one of the back-end digital distributors of audio to iTunes, Rhapsody, EMusic, etc.)

    I feel like this is the same story as "CD sales are declining!" The whole time you've heard that in the news for the past 6 years, physical CD sales for small independent artists has shot WAY up.

    It's like you were looking at one of those stock charts that compares two different companies' stocks. The big famous artists would be that stock whose value has fallen from $100/share to $70/share. But the independent (mostly unknown) artists are like a $1 stock that is now at $5. It's more newsworthy to talk about the big visible stock falling, but the real story down here is in the huge boost that the indies have gotten from improved distribution / availability.

    Check out this visual / geographic metaphor, too.