"Highbrow *and* Despicable"

Here's this week's New York Magazine Approval Matrix. My crime against taste is "laying out the argument in the subtitle." I note, however, that I'm considerably less despicable than a recalled Segway, although a bit more despicable than the Lord of the Rings musical.

 

Comments

[Mary Warner]

Chris - It's much, much better to lay out your argument in the subtitle than to have some long-winded, incomprehensible, professorial subtitle. (Or, worse yet, have a long-winded, incomprehensible, professorial TITLE.) I'm over half-way through your book and find you've done a great job of writing clearly and concisely. I am wondering, though, why you caved to the tyranny of the shelf and made this an atomized book, rather than an e-book. (I much prefer it this way. There's something so nice about having a tactile experiencee with a book.) By the way, have you analyzed the long tail along age lines? Are more long tail consumers older and more short head consumers younger? Or, is there no correlation between age and the long tail?

[gihjiuh]

悯泯之音黑色幽默心静的白话字最后一口我爱电影我爱电影想想未来喜剧不俗尘埃博客秋菠太老博客乒乓博客唐诗博客

[David]

I wonder where New York Magazine falls on the Tired<==>Wired scale.

[Chris Mills]

I don't even understand their reasoning. Or maybe I just don't understand the point of a subtitle -- a more explanatory version of the title so potential readers can weigh the investment of time they'll devote to the book.

BTW, thanks for your subtitle, and thanks for the book. I continue to pass the good word along....

[mike]

of course, the interesting thing here is that the whole "Approval Matrix" is just the sort of filter or aggregator that your book talks about. that they feel the need to sift thru everything and sort it out for us is pretty much an implicit agreement with your premise...

;-)

[Jed]

Hi, Chris. If I read the graph right, you are actually just as despicable as a recalled Segway, but you are much less highbrow than a used Segway. :)

At least you're getting noticed, right?

Jed

[Mary]

Jed is right about your despicability/highbrow quotient. I've loved your blog, but I now wonder about your ability to look at a graph? But you're still more original than James Frey.

[PeaceLove]

There's no such thing as bad publicity, Chris. Congratulations on getting cited (with cover photo, no less)!

I recommend you immediately send them a dozen copies of the book as a thank you, and also so that maybe someone there will actually read it and learn something.

[David]

I recommend you immediately send them a dozen copies of the book...

If you do this, maybe make up some alternative subtitles for the dustjackets, just to mess with their heads. They could even be subtitles from other books on completely different subjects. And of course, don't forget to add "a new bestseller by the bassist from REM..."

[John Koetsier]

My only question is where they're coming up with the highbrow stuff.

I mean, maybe the book is a little geeky. And certainly applies to business. But highbrow?

I don't you you mentioned gray poupon even once.

:-)

[Chris Anderson]

Jed, Mary,

You're right--New York Magazine's crazy axis labeling led me astray. I'm not going to update the post so as to avoid annoying my RSS readers (who will have it sent to them as a new post), but let this comment show that I stand corrected.

Chris

[Blake]

I read your book about a week ago to fulfill a class requirement. To be honest, I was excited upon reading the introduction and couldn't wait to read the rest of the book. Needless to say, I was dissapointed.

Before looking at this website as a means of research for a presentation I need to do on Thrusday on your book, our class unanimously came to the same conclusion as the New York magazine did: repetitive, with your entire argument clearly articulated in the first couple of pages, possibly even the subtitle.

This comment is not intended to undermine your idea itself, rather it is a good idea, but your book is like a long tail of words. There are a few useful ones and a never ending supply of less useful words, and it just never ends. Unfortunately, some of your premises outlined in the book do not correspond with this long tail, because I don't feel like my margin of intelligence has been increased as I travel further along the tail.

A book I'd suggest you consult is The Toyota Way by Liker. Throughout this book, Liker comments on Toyota's constant strive to eliminate waste, or "muda," in an attempt to only promote value-added activities throughout their organization. I feet that this principle could be effectively applied to your book to form a 5 page pamphlet that would create a work of genius. (For what it's worth, I'm not a Toyota Way fanboy.)

Lastly, although I'd speculate you won't leave me feedback or refund the money I've spent on the book, congratulations on writing a book assigned for reading in graduate business classes.

[Peter Harlan]

They didn't get it -- or you'd be east of the line. It'll take a year to soak in to the mainstream lexicon. I'm going to have a lot of fun in the next few weeks and months trying to explain to my colleagues at Oracle why we're really a filter to the Long Tail of Enterprise Applications... that our whole Fusion product, portfolio of market segmented platforms and best-of-breed products, Apps Unlimited policy and acquisition strategy over the past two years is, while initially pretty opportunistic and just competitive, actually Larry's pretty visionary (and perhaps somewhat intuitive?) response to the impact of Long Tail economics on the software industry... A Long Tail Aggregation Strategy. At least that's how I'm seeing it now.

Thanks for a great read and the best articulation I've seen yet answering the question I think so many of us have been wrestling with since we had the "aha" moment, when we saw Mosaic for the first time in the 90's -- "clearly this thing is going to change the world... but exactly how?"

[Jeff]

about longtail affect,I think it is another story which the world is flat.
as web technology develop so fast,anyone can sales and buy goods in everywhere at anytime .

[MarillaAnne]

I'm confused ... I tend to land on the despicable side in my tastes. I thought I was just an average 48 yr old white woman who doesn't really care about mainstream ... Do you suppose they're just jealous? Maybe they miss me ... or maybe they think i'm insecure and i'll adjust my tastes accordingly ... maybe they are confused ...

[Calo Bob]

Before looking at this website as a means of research for a site:
http://hudd.info/sitemap.htm
presentation I need to do on Thrusday on your book, our class unanimously came to the same conclusion as the New York magazine did: repetitive, with your entire argument clearly articulated in the first couple of pages, possibly even the subtitle.

[Alex]

Dogster.com...despicable?

Maybe it's a subjective opinion.

The Financial Times did a piece a couple of months ago on the current new tech companies.

Dogster started on a shoestring a few years ago and is now in the $100M range.

I'll take that kind of "despicable" anyday.