During my reading of the book “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson I have learned much about the subject of the Long Tail and have become more aware of the enormous opportunities that lie in the long tail. The democratization of distribution and production have erupted a very large change in many industries. It is very attractive to start a business in a niche market nowadays, instead of aiming for a big ”hit”. This is an opportunity which companies could continue to explore. I find it interesting to see where the long tail will take us in the future.
I am fond of a related but different concept, which I have named the democratization of knowledge. By this I mean the spreading of knowledge, for example University courses, to more people and removing the geographical and financial barriers of the knowledge. I am of the opinion that knowledge should be spread in a way that it is accessible to everyone. A great example that comes to mind concerning accessible knowledge is the website www.seekershub.org. SeekersHub aims to provide Islamic knowledge to people around the world, and has made it very easy for students all around the world to gain knowledge. They have also made use of the pay what you want pricing concept, where students can give their own value to the delivered service. It is possible to attend the lessons for free, but one has the option to pay for them the amount the person wants. This website has also made use of the long-tail concept. The reason therefore is that they provide all sorts of lessons, and not mainly standard lessons. In-depth lessons are provided for all sorts of disciplines, thus enabling most people to find a suitable course.
Returning to the democratization of knowledge, I am of the opinion that universities like the Erasmus University of Rotterdam should also make a lot of their classes way more accessible to the rest of the world. This can happen on platforms like Coursera or edX, but they can also build their own platform to provide this service. SeekersHub has a beautiful initiative called Knowledge Without Barriers. I think universities should take note of this and also provide knowledge without barriers.
