Navigating The Long Tail

Slide 1: Navigating the Long Tail September 2007

Slide 2: James Kalbach Human Factors Engineer, LexisNexis Information Architect, Razorfish Germany (2003) LIS Degree from Rutgers University Designing Web Navigation (O‘Reilly, Aug 2007)

Slide 3: P Head = Hits O P U L A R Long Tail = Niche Markets I T Y PRODUCTS

Slide 4: “ The hits now compete with an infinite number of niche markets, of any size. ” “ Increasingly, the mass market is turning into a mass of niches. ”

Slide 6: “ You can't have everything, where would you put it? ” (Steven Wright)

Slide 7: Metadata Online, there is virtually no cost to add more No shelf space No manufacturing costs No distribution costs “ The solution to the overabundance of information is more ” information (David Weinberger) BUT, the cost of adding more information is noise

Slide 8: Navigation Layer

Slide 9: 1. User-Generated Metadata Pros • Low maintenance • Self-generating organization • Low costs to get started • OK for an answer Cons • Lacks comprehensiveness • Requires incubation time • Navigating other's tags difficult Example: Tagging

Slide 10: 2. Technically Generated Metadata Cons Pros • Can be inaccurate • Scales up • Performance intensive • Quick, timely • High cost to enter • Inexpensive to run Examples: Entity Extraction Sentiment Analysis

Slide 11: 3. Owner-Created Metadata Pros • Consistent terms • Comprehensive Cons • Time intensive to create • Maintenance • Inflexible, rigid Example: Controlled Vocabulary

Slide 12: Classification: 99% Bad? “ Ontological classification works well in some places, of course…So what you want to know, when thinking about how to organize anything, is whether that kind of classification is a good strategy. ” Clay Shirky “Ontology is Overrated”

Slide 17: Social Structure

Slide 18: Technical Structure

Slide 19: Adding Structure

Slide 20: Navigation Tools Issues Scalability Speed Ease of Use Representation Integrating navigation and search Example: Click Search

Slide 22: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Slide 23: Information Structures Content inventory will become domain analysis • Facets • Frequency • Longevity • Quantity • Linking • Authority • Genres

Slide 24: Conclusions The cost of adding more information is noise Different sources of metadata and structures Top-down categorization is a viable strategy in niches Niche markets are defined by the categories you create Provide tools to navigate and make sense of information Any and all means of navigation and structure are needed Look at inherent patterns of information in a domain

Slide 25: Thank You James.Kalbach@LexisNexis.com