I wonder why?

Photo courtesy Thor Swift/Wired.com

Found on the Wired blogs. Google’s Udi Manber spends endless time thinking about how search can be improved. One big reason many searches don’t succeed, he believes, is that despite the 20 billion or so Web pages in Google’s indexes — including the 2 million items in Wikipedia — the information simply isn’t there.

“The process will take 20 seconds with credit cards,” says Knol product manager Cedric Dupont. Phone checks will take a minute or so. This vetting, Manber hopes, will give knols accountability and, in the case of high-status authors, the benefit of a solid reputation.

Update: Here’s Knol from Google.

I’ve been a proponent of the Long Tail theory since stumbling upon Chris Anderson’s blog of the same name. Reading the book affirmed some thoughts I’d had about how certain niche products found a life online that they most certainly would not have found in a regular bricks and mortar retail outlet.

Granted, because of my background in online music distribution the theory immediately appealed to me. I saw it as an idea that would help unlock the gatekeepers stranglehold over the discovery of music either as CDs or legal music files. Those gatekeepers being terrestrial radio, the record companies and online music retailers such as iTunes who wrapped their music files with DRM.

A simple explanation of the Long Tail theory is that the internet gives us unparalleled access to more products across the “tail” and doesn’t just expose us to those mass products at the “head.” It suggests that people are willing to search and pull a song from say, Tortoise, an alternative music outfit that sells modestly, rather than sit back and be bombarded by iTunes trying to sell them, or push, a song from Coldplay. As the theory goes, Tortoise could make a living selling its music vertically in its slice of the tail.

Like any good theory it is open to question and discussion. This is where Anita Elberse steps in with her article in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘Should You Invest in The Long Tail?’ Meanwhile Chris Anderson has been gracious enough to accept the challenge to his theory by responding to it on his blog.

I need to spend time with the article as it is not only lengthy but includes a lot of data and links to sources, as well as concluding with advice to different businesses on how or not to include the Long Tail in their marketing efforts. Anderson’s responses will take some digestion too. Perspective and insight is required before comment. That’s why it’s frustrating to me that people like Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal’s Portals column has jumped in gleefully accusing Wired magazine [where Chris Anderson is Editor-In-Chief] of having a “template” where they “take a partly true, modestly interesting, tech-friendly idea and puff it up to Second Coming proportions.”

Gomes is of course allowed his opinion of Wired magazine articles but I wonder if he has really had time to read and digest Elberse’s paper as well as study Anderson’s responses. It’s also odd that he blames bloggers for “talking up the theory, which is no wonder considering how it held out the promise that even the most obscure among them could win a robust audience.” As a columnist for the WSJ he has been happily debunking the Long Tail theory since it inception as he did in this article from July 2006. Is he more fearful of the Long Tail theory or of the bloggers who may gain audience share along the tail away from the WSJ head?

Whatever the outcome of the debate between Elberse and Anderson I doubt that there will be immediate agreement on the benefits or not of the Long Tail. One things for sure, it is way too soon to be joyfully jumping upon its supposed grave.

Being green isn’t easy. Wired magazine appeared in my mailbox again this month with some bold headlines on the cover - ‘Keep your SUV’ ‘Forget Organics’ ‘Go Nuclear’ and ‘Screw the Spotted Owl.’ Sure, they have to sell magazines and controversy sells magazines but those statements seemed a bit heavy-handed. [As for selling magazines, you will easily recall for example the Vanity Fair/Miley Cyrus debacle right?]

The story behind the eye-catching headlines brings us some fun-filled facts about our carbon footprints as we go about our daily lives… e.g. Live in Cities - the suburbs have created edge-cities which in turn create super-commuters who spend more than 3 hours a day in transit. Also those lawns need mowing out there - 40 million lawn mowers each spew 11 cars worth of pollutants every hour. A/C is OK - it’s cheaper to cool a house than it is to heat it so living in Arizona is better than living in the Pacific Northwest as less energy is used in AZ and there are less pollutants created by cooling. Carbon Trading doesn’t work - where’s the guarantee that the tree planted in Bolivia to offset $10 worth of air travel, won’t be chopped down before it absorbs the requisite carbon? [Sorry, you'll have to sell that Range Rover now.]

But, what grabbed my attention immediately is the Hummer vs Prius match-up - pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon into the atmosphere than making a Hummer. The Prius is actually not a good investment if you are thinking about buying one to save money according to the Hybrid Cars web site:

“Don’t buy a hybrid because you want to make back an investment. That will take between five and twenty years, depending on gas prices, the amount you drive, and how good of a deal you got on the car. Buy a hybrid because it’s the most fuel-efficient car on the road, because the tailpipe emissions are very low, because it uses great technology, or because it’s fun to drive. If gas prices keep going up, then you might get your return on investment. For now, it’s not a good enough reason alone to choose a hybrid version over exactly the same size and kind of conventional car.”

And Omninerd lays out the cost vs value proposition of owning a Prius over a regular used Toyota Corolla. Also let’s not forget that running the Hummer is a different story re its emissions than the amount of energy required to build it.

Final fun fact: All the so-called clean development mechanisms authorized by the Kyoto Protocol, designed to keep 175 million tons of CO 2 out of the atmosphere by 2012, will slow the rise of carbon emissions by…. 6.5 days.

We need a different strategy. Buying a Prius might make us feel good but selling our cars and hopping on the bus will actually make a difference.