Telepocalypse

So, people want to be able to choose, but in the meantime they want also somebody to suggest what their choice should be.
If you are so and so, if you like so and so, then you will like to be entertained with so and so.
Call it laziness, call it dependence from a PC or from the Internet or from the Media or from the society we are living in, but in everyone of us there is that small part of insecurity, of wanting to be and do better of what we are, that makes us willing to look for "suggestions" or eager to do what "others suggest" or what "they say it is good.."
That explains why everybody is so eager to follow fashion being it the latest suit or coat or bag or shoe, or the latest movie everybody is talking about...

And sometimes we even like what we wouldn't like hadn't somebody convinced us of it....
We want to have a big choice to be able to choose what the others suggest us to choose...

It is not true that "almost none of our photo sharing is direct P2P, for example".
It mostly depend what KIND of PHOTO sharing it is...
Patrizia

Posted by: at November 18, 2005 09:57 AM

Lotsa reasons to take recommendations other than our insecurity:

- External perspective: sometimes other people have ideas you don't have
- Scale effects: the few popular items may be enhanced by the efforts of their many admirers
- Avoiding junk: Sturgeon sez that 90% of everything is junk, so taking the safe consensus choices may be a good trade-off between our time and the extra (maybe) 10% that is not junk to us but is the the majors.

Posted by: at November 19, 2005 03:00 PM

Long tail enthusiasts gloss over that.

Posted by: at November 20, 2005 06:51 PM