Woodard also assumes that his data still underestimates the true size of the tail, as he deliberately filtered out all adult searches and only looked at data from the last three months. The fact that Hitwise relies on data from roughly 10 million U.S. users surely makes the data somewhat limited in its scope as well.

Also, looking at this data is yet another good reminder of the fact that search has replaced bookmarks and memorizing URLs for a lot of people. Most of the top search terms like 'google,' or 'usps,' are, after all, identical to their URLs.

MagCloud is another project to emerge from HP Labs. Earlier this year, HP Labs launched BookPrep, a print-on-demand service for out-of-print books. Now, they're delivering MagCloud, a project devoted to providing small independent publishers the ability to publish digitized magazines as well as economically print on demand. Using HP's Indigo technology, the magazines are printed when ordered in full color on 80 lb paper with saddle-stitched covers.

How To Use MagCloud

To get started with creating a custom magazine, you must first create a PDF of your content using a tool that outputs high-resolution PDFs, like Adobe InDesign. You'll also need to have a PayPal account in order to sell the magazines with the markup you choose. Since the service is in beta at the moment, orders must be sent to a U.S. shipping address. Publishers can request an invitation here.

Browsing the MagCloud Selections

For those just interested in reading the MagCloud produced zines, you can create an account and then browse the selections of magazines available or subscribe to receive email notifications from the publisher as to when new issues are available. You can also choose to subscribe via RSS, but the feed does not contain the magazine's content as posts, only notifications when new issues are released.

There are already tons of magazines to browse through in diverse categories ranging from Art to Food to Literature to Finance and so much more. For example, RWW readers might be interested in the soon-to-launch magazine "The Rubyist" (for Rubyists, by Rubyists), which will focus on technical content and happenings in the world of Ruby, Rails, and Merb. Or for the more business-minded, the magazine "Professionally Speaking" may appeal, which gives tips on public speaking, giving presentations, etc.

Another great thing about a self-published magazine is that you can just purchase the issues you're interested in - the same as buying from the newsstand. You don't have to commit to a full subscription.

Previewing a MagCloud Magazine

A Great Addition To The POD World

As we noted earlier this year, the print-on-demand industry has really been heating up. Amazon launched CreateSpace and another Lulu-esque service called Wordclay began offering paperback publishing. Even casual publishing outfits like CafePress and Blurb have continued to offer options for less serious writers. Now, MagCloud seems to be a perfect addition to join the POD space. If you want to join MagCloud yourself, the signup page is here.

However, blogs are still big business. While most "regular" people might not be avid blog readers, they still read them passively when encountering blog content via links from mainstream sources, links in emails, or search results. All that adds up to a lot of monetizable, niche traffic. That's where Technorati is hoping to score big. The company says that it "collects, organizes, highlights, and distributes the online global conversation," which is short hand for, "we have a lot of data on who's saying what about what."

This morning I talked to Alan Levy, CEO of BlogTalkRadio, which has been an early beta tester of the new Technorati Media ad network. Levy had nothing but nice things to say about Technorati. "There's no doubt that major brands want to be part of the conversation with the blogosphere," Levy told me, and Technorati has a reputation as a company that understands that conversation. Blogs are conversational in nature, Levy said, and the long tail network that Technorati is assembling will allow brands to be part of that via very targeted advertising.

Appealing to the long tail is a smart play for Technorati. As we wrote last November, there's no money in the long tail, but there is plenty to be made on the long tail because there is volume there. That's essentially how AdSense works -- sell targeted ads to specific niches across a huge inventory assembled from low traffic sites. If Technorati, which sells on a CPM basis and is willing to negotiate the revenue split with blogs -- something Google won't do except with its largest publishers -- can out perform AdSense for long tail bloggers, they'll have a real winner on their hands.

It's true that MySpace owes much of its success to its popularity with musicians, and the service could certainly be a game changer. Search for almost any major musical act in Google and you're almost certain to find three things on the first page of results: the artist's official page, the artist's wikipedia page, and the artist's MySpace page. With it's position as the current generation's MTV, the potential for MySpace to serve as a serious hub for music sales is believable. And as we noted in February, chief rival Facebook has a long way to go to catch up with MySpace in the area of music.

But MySpace doesn't just cater to the major acts -- much of the appeal of the social network is in the ability to connect directly with local, long tail acts. That's where its true roots lie. As Matt Rosoff writes on CNET's Crossfade blog, "major label acts are a small part of the MySpace experience... MySpace is the ultimate long tail site for musicians, where bar bands and small-town heroes can appear in the same context as the biggest bands in the world."

What we're looking for next from MySpace is to extend the functionality of their music store to every musical act using the site. That would certainly be a game changer and would make it easier for small acts to build awareness and cultivate their "true fans." In essence, it would make it simple for any small band to put out their work on the web's label: MySpace.

"They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans."

This is interesting given the Nine Inch Nails release. As commenter Shannon Clark pointed out, very quickly the limited edition signed $300 "super deluxe" package of the new NIN album sold out. While clearly Trent Reznor is working with more than 1,000 true fans at this point (especially considering the "super deluxe" edition was limited 2,500 copies), the same concept is at play. Because his true fans came through for him, whatever else happens, Reznor will likely profit from the Ghosts experiment.

But how hard it is to find those true fans? Reznor had the benefit of a long career backed by major labels that help push his music out to a wide audience. There is an interesting debate raging in the comments of yesterday's NIN post about whether any artist has ever gone from obscurity to mainstream success without help from a major label. Of course, Kelly says mainstream success isn't necessary, with work you can connect on a more local, personal level with your true fans.

I've actually seen this happen up close with a friend of mine who plays music in a rather obscure genre. By doing things like playing free house shows, blogging on MySpace and Facebook, having email and IM conversations with fans, inviting fans to help in the process by doing things like copying CDs and designing case inserts, etc. he has made sure he stays connected to his true fans. The fan base he has cultivated, albeit small by record label standards, ensures that there are enough people who will buy every new CD he puts out and come to his shows and drop $30 on t-shirts and stickers that he can continue to pay his bills.

This is also essentially the same theory employed by music startup Sellaband (our coverage). The web site implores music acts to generate $50,000 from "believers" -- usually in the form of $10 donations from 5,000 true fans. Any band that reaches that goal gets studio time to record a full album and distribution via the site and other retail channels.

Kelly's blueprint for long tail success works because he is talking about goods that you sell directly to your fans. Alex Iskold wrote last year how that blueprint won't work in the blogosphere. Because most blogging is ad supported, and because advertising is based on volume, a small number of true fans won't cut it.

However, though Kelly's argument may not apply to those looking to make money directly from blogging, blogging is probably a good way to make connections with and create a base of true fans. So even though you can't make money directly in the long tail of blogging, as Iskold said, perhaps you can use blogging in the long tail to cultivate a base of fans to make money via other methods (i.e., by selling books or booking speaking engagements).

"The rise of the Obama Campaign tells us that Scale Matters. It means that The Long Tail is validated (in politics at least)," says Garcia. "It also means that size doesn't matter after all; rather, it is the quantity that matters. Scale Matters."

That's an important point, and echoes what we said earlier this month about the paradigm shift in political fundraising. The Internet has allowed campaigns to tap into the Long Tail of politics for fundraising and organizing. Obama and Paul are attracting people to the political process who have never participated before, and while their message and rhetoric has a lot to do with that, it is the web tools that have enabled it and allowed it to happen.

What Howard Dean started in 2004 with his now famous use of Meetup.com to mobilize a grassroots campaign across the US, has developed further in this election cycle with the use of tools like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. "It is technology that is driving the grassroots effort in such a fast and scalable fashion for these new campaigns," writes Garcia. "By enabling users and donors to contribute their dollars, content and time through online tools the speed and efficiency in which these efforts grows takes on a network effect that accelerates campaigns quicker than ever. In many ways, its the network effect of user participation and user empowerment that is driving the Obama campaign."

New software has created a political landscape where voters feel more connected to candidates and each other than every before. Citizens are able to participate in the political process on a personal level more easily as a result of web 2.0.

Because of that development, political campaigns in 2008 are able to tap a previously unreachable Long Tail of voters (or potential voters). What Obama and Paul are tapping into also echoes the commentary Alex Iskold made about the Long Tail of the blogosphere last November. "You can make money on the Long Tail but not in the Long Tail. The precise point of Anderson's argument is that it is a collective of the Long Tail amounts to substantial dollars because the volume is there," he wrote.

It is important to note that what Obama and Paul are doing is exploiting the massive scale of the Long Tail, they're not a part of it. While neither is a centrist candidate, they are also not fringe candidates. The Long Tail, as it applies to candidates, exists with third parties and independents. The argument that Garcia is making is not that Obama and Paul are Long Tail candidates, but that they are tapping into the Long Tail of voters to power their campaigns.

(It is also probably important to note that Garcia has a vested interest in his theory as the CEO of Central Desktop, which makes software that was used by the Obama campaign to connect to voters in California.)