Chris Anderson

I was reading through one of this years past issues of Wired magazine and found an article by editor Chris Anderson describing one of the fundamental reasons why so many sites geared to personalizing their inventory have become so popular in recent years.

Basically Anderson describes an era in which the so called "hit" is on its way out. Because of features like the Internet, which inevitably opens up the doors to an entire world of alternatives, people are turning more and more to their own individual interests. Why? Simply because they can. Unlike ten or twenty years ago, they have the option to turn off their local radio station and go online and find another station they like even more, or they can download specific songs they want to hear. Because of this new trend, companies are trying to target these new age consumers. We can now sign on to sites like Pandora and the site will try and fit their personal tastes.

"There has never been a better time to be an artist or a fan, and there has never been more music made or listened to. But the traditional model of marketing and selling music no longer works. The big players in the distribution system - major record labels, retail giants - depend on huge, platinum hits. These days, though, there are not nearly enough of those to support the industry in the style to which is has become accustomed. We are witnessing the end of an era."

"The world of shelf space is a zero-sum game: One product displaces another. Forced to choose, each link in the entertainment industry naturally selects the most popular products, giving them privileged placement. By putting our commercial weight behind the big winners, we amplify the gap between them and everything else. Economically, this is the same as saying, 'If there can be only a few rich, let them at least be super-rich.'

But now the audience is turning to a distribution medium that doesn't favor the hits alone. We are abandoning the tyranny of the top and becoming a niche nation again, defined not by our geography but by our interests."

Again, what is most important now is the fact that "traditional styles of marketing and selling music" really do have to adapt to the changes in our culture. You can see them already -- even on Pandora, all their songs have links, so when you click on the name of the song, the site automatically transfers you to another page filled with ways to purchase the material. There are links to amazon.com to purchase the album and to iTunes to purchase the song individually. Not to mention, right beneath the track listing of the selected album, there are also several other "similar albums" to choose from. All of these features prove that Pandora, and sites like it are the wave of the future -- an entire network set up specifically to cater to your own personal needs.