Partnerships
The Long Tail: A Long Stretch?
Becca Stern | 08/03/2010
I recently finished reading Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More”.
The Long Tail is a statistical property which says that the majority of the population rests in the tail of probability distribution. The reason the Long Tail works is because today, with the accessibility of information, society demands variety. This demand stimulates the need to have a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities, in addition to a small number of popular items available in large quantities. Throughout The Long Tail, Anderson uses music as his prime example. The example works like this: Music is the general category. Within “Music” there are various genres that range from highly popular (Rock/Pop) to more unique (African Folk). Anderson explains that because there is a higher demand for Rock/Pop, it is at the front of the tail, while African Folk, which sells fewer albums, falls somewhere on the falling part of the tail.
« Read more »The Delicious Connection Between Judaism and Technology
Becca Stern | 07/07/2010
Hello! My name is Becca Stern and I’m the newest addition to the JPS Interactive team. As the JPSI Summer Intern, I’ll be writing and contributing to the JPS Interactive blog and the Tagged Tanakh all summer, and I could not be more excited!
A little about myself: I’m a rising junior at the University of Pittsburgh where I’m studying English Literature and Children’s Literature. I’m a native of Philadelphia (go Phils!) and I love to eat and travel—especially at the same time.
One of my first assignments at JPS was to sort through JPS Interactive’s bookmarks. Using a web tool called Delicious, JPS staff have tagged and gathered interesting tidbits of information found online that relate to Judaism and technology. After hours of exploring three years’ worth of links (which I guess are kind of like digital bread crumbs), I started to conceptualize the path JPS Interactive and the Tagged Tanakh are forging.
« Read more »Judaism, Free Culture, and the Open Siddur Project
JT | 08/24/2009
“As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, as laws are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What’s at stake is our freedom—freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine.”
So says cultural environmentalist and thought leader, Lawrence Lessig in his book entitled Free Culture. Lessig is an integral part to the copyleft and creative commons movements–legal and social agendas bent on reviewing and renovating the copyright laws that companies like Disney have lobbied long and hard to put in place.
Free culture is succinctly described as one where all members are free to participate in its transmission and evolution, without artificial limits on who can participate or in what way. The free culture movement seeks to develop this culture by promoting four things:
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