Contemplating Infinity

Okay, that's an over-the-top subject line, but it's still sort of the gist of a recent post on The Long Tail blog about how entertainment choices get filtered. As the kids like to say, read the whole thing.

Chris Anderson is hitting on something I realized very early on in the digital music game. Flattening the music business to everybody can release a record isn't terribly useful to consumers, because there's way too much bad shit to sort through. Back in 2000 or so, that got me thinking that record labels could still be relevant, although their ranks would swell with online aggregators like Yahoo! or Amazon, who could also provide some sort of navigation through the glut of choices.

The fun part -- and this is what the article touches on -- is that anyone and anything has the potential to be an effective post-filter. Which is why the labels could still hold some relevance, if they're able to stay top-of-mind for some majority of consumers when they want to find music. Of course, that's a really big "if," as the corporate interest of a record company is to steer people toward their products, and that inherent bias could turn people off once your personal recommendations don't include stuff you know you like.

On the other hand, I'm a little wary of purely technological filters, as the seems to be too much potential to game the system. Of course, the system is already rigged, so it's really just a matter of picking your poison.