I’ve been reading Chris Guillebeau’s blog lately, he’s an interesting guy.

So there has been a lot of chatter about racism in the bloggisphere. It centers around Loren Feldman’s video “TechNiggas“. Verizon immediately pulled their deal with his company 1938 Media (big surprise), and lots of bloggers started talking. You can see more background at Mashable. Is the video racist? If Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle had done it? Then probably not. Do you have to be of the ethnicity to joke about it? Maybe. I’m half Asian and half white, part Buddhist, part Jew, part the force so I have lots of material to pull from. I’m old enough that I remember when there were no minorities on TV or in advertising. We take it for granted now but the Benetton commercials that put the races together in ads were revolutionary. “Look mom I’m on TV!”

Mike Arrington wrote about it. Chris Brogan wrote about the dark side of the web. And then Chris Penn wrote a really good piece saying that the dark side of social media is that we no longer have to listen to ideas and people that we don’t already agree with. And that where i want to pick it up.

Chris Anderson’s theory of The Long Tail is usually used it relation to marketing. The head is where the hits are, the long tail where the rest of the market lives and the web allows us to capitalize on the tail like never before. This concept has been challenged recently in the Harvard Business Review and defended and clarified by Seth Godin and Kevin Kelly. (Kevin’s insights about aggregators and creators at the end of the tail are really great.)

I think The Long Tail also works with social ideas. We have the mass ideas at the head and then a very long tail of niche ideas. Because the web and search allows us to find exactly what we want, when we want it, it becomes very easy to migrate to social groups populated by people that think the same things we do. Similarly much of the mass media has fragmented into a series of niches. Media isn’t pushed to us anymore and for the most part we pull what we want. It’s easy to be insulated from different ideas. I choose my magazines from 500 on the shelf. I pick the one that ‘thinks’ like me, not the one that shows opposing points of view. I pick my television from endless cable stations that are ever more specific. And on the web this process is amplified. The web is niche to the tenth degree and thats why we love it. Because it allows us to connect to like minded people. I am drawn to the things and groups that support what i already think.

As we move down the tail the ideas become more and more extreme. I can find a group online that will reinforce any set of ideas, no matter how fringe, crazy or evil. Want pedophiles, you got it. Nazis, its there. You name it, it exists on the web and you can find a niche that will help support and prop up your ideas, no matter how looney.

I love the web for the community it allows me to be apart of but that cuts both ways. The niches of the Long Tail allow us to sit in our comfort zone and not listen to different points of view.

So here are a few questions.
Do you think Feldman’s video is racist?
How do you think the long tail of ideas will develop?
Will it lead us to understanding or division?

So lets talk about this. Is there a difference between ads, mashups and covers?

I consider the web that I live in to be a community. Here and at davidusher.com its me typing. I’m the one posting on my wall, responding to your comments, twittering, putting up those lowfi recordings of my songs at 3 in the morning. I am not a corporation, I am a person banging away at the keys just like everybody else. Maybe this is naive but when Daniel walks around the neighbourhood (which he has targeted) with a sign that says if you love David come see me, it just feels strange to me. I’m standing right there.

When Facebook launched Beacon their ad program that put Facebook users photos and names in product ads without their permission there was such a massive outcry that Facebook had to do a huge pull back and make the program out in rather than opt out. People hated having no say about how they were positioned next to products they hadn’t agreed to endorse. Well I feel the same way. I would feel the same way if my name was put in a “Your 40, loose weight” ad. And I think you would too.

Batman, mashups and covers.

Warner Brothers does not live on my street. They are corporation but… that’s not the point.
I have always felt there was a difference between mashups, covers and ads. The lines are thin here but i think they revolve around creativity. I have always loved mashups and covers. Youtube Black Black Heart you’ll find hundreds of different anime mashups of the song. Youtube David Usher covers and you’ll find lots of people covering my songs. Many of these I’ve posted on my site at one time or another. There is a creative element to them where they take something from the web and reinvent it. And its that creative element that makes it different to me. Its a small difference, but that’s just how i feel about it.

Social networking and the online community has only been around for a few years and we are all learning how it works (myself included).

Well, thoughts?…and lets talk like people that are at the same table. (more ideas, less yelling)

Thanks for the great discussion on the last post. (85 comments) Its amazing to have such a spirited debate on this blog and i know that music make everyone passionate. But it got me thinking. When does passion turn into aggression? Whats the line. I want the debate here to be passionate but i also want it to be thoughtful. I appreciate strong opinions but also think there is to much yelling in the world and not enough balanced thoughtful conversation. John Stewart was right when he went on Crossfire and said what they were doing was hurting America. I love the passion, hate the aggression.

What do you think?

All’s fair in love and advertising? Tons of people forwarded me this ad that’s been appearing on Facebook. Mitch (Joel) was the first of course:) Think about it, that’s pretty good marketing. He’s able to get directly to the crowd he wants to reach and people he thinks will love his music. By using the keyword “David Usher” when he sets up the ad Daniel can targeting my audience. Lots of you emailed me saying “what the hell, can he do this?”. I think he can. I’ve emailed Daniel to see how the campaign worked for him.

What do you think?

Well the auction is over.

CBCNews.ca “Fiddler Ashley MacIsaac, as known for his attention-seeking stunts as his musical talents, has launched an online auction to sell half of his future revenue. In an eBay listing, the 33-year-old musician says he’ll share 50 per cent of his future receipts with a winning bidder until the day he dies. The deal also includes a concert a year for the next decade, located wherever the winner chooses. As of Wednesday afternoon, one anonymous eBay account holder has met MacIsaac’s starting bid of $1.5 million. The auction ends July 7.”

As far as i can tell the one bidder has disappeared and the auction has been taken down. Im not sure if its brilliant or sad.

Did anyone hear more on this, how it ended?

Don’t underestimate how important it is. Make something you love. It doesnt always work out but the point is to try. I was listening to Margaret Atwood on CBC and she was talking about if the point of poetry is to be active or passive. She said something one of her old teachers use to say was “is it alive or dead”. You may not always succeed but who cares. We try to make things that are alive. The internet allows us to do things we couldn’t before. Freedom. Thats why i love it.

Chris Brogan, an always read on my Google Reader writes a great post of blogging essentials. If your blogging or thinking about it, its a good read. There really is a method to the madness and Chris helps sort through it with A Sample of Blogging Workflow.

Chris Penn wrote today that Twitter has limited the number of people that he can follow. We all know they are having their problems over there, maybe this is a way of trying to put limitations on their service while they play catch up.
But lets talk honestly for a second. Does it matter? How many people can you really follow, I mean really follow. Chris has over 2000 people that he’s following. I can barely keep up with returning my emails, never mind write my 2 blogs, voice mails etc. Can anyone really follow 2000 people on twitter, or a 1000 or even a 100. For myself and from my conversations with many of you thats not really what we are doing with Twitter. Most of us scan it when we can. We use Tweetscan to check out what people are saying about us. So the # of people you are following is more about the # than the value of all those conversations.

Maybe Ive missed the point of following. What do you think? How many people do you really follow?

Ps you can follow me on Twitter here, if you can handle the noise:)

Note: Chris Penn commented
“I can definitely say I don’t know what all 2,000 are doing, but I can also definitely say that with a river of stuff that broad, there’s always an interesting conversation to jump in to!”

Im doing most things on my mobile because I travel so much and am rarely at a desk, so i think its harder to surf the river, but Im going to try and think of Twitter following that way for a bit to see if it changes my interactions.

A picture is worth a 1000 words. Remember where the music at Starbuck use to sit. Apparently teddy bears in bee suits bring in more revenue. Not a cd to be found in the place.
I need to go into the bear business:)