The long tail has got tangled with my fingers so i forgot to type in the URL for Amazoning. Here it is:

http://www.visual-basic-solutions.net/amazoning/amaz/amaz.asp

Take a look at a simple site I built using Amazon web services, XML/XSL and plain old ASP, to help users ride the long tail of Amazon

Did you use the original Napster much? There’s a reason that Gaim still includes a “Napster” IM protocol… people chatted heavily on Napster and OpenNap servers about the music they were sharing. I was on a Napster server the day Napster was shut down, and I think I saved the logs somewhere… It felt very much like a city after the air raid sirens have gone off. People were very upset and worried about the future of their community, not just the loss of a source of no-cost music. (I was also very upset about the death of MP3.com, but that’s a rant for another day.)

Today on college campuses, Direct Connect / DC++ acts like Napster in some important respects, since there are servers where you can chat with other users about the files that they are sharing. However, I think it is true that people do not talk as much as they did on Napster, although people actually do use Direct Connect to share things like video of a school musical and those can be topics of conversation.

Honestly, I think iTunes and IM have taken over in dorms around the country. People tend to just tell their friends to check out their songs on their iTunes playlist (which can be downloaded using programs like Ourtunes), or they simply use IM file transfer to send people the files they want. This feels more like passing CDs among friends than a virtual community. I think that those who speak of a return to the sneakernet or the rise of private darknets are correct, and Napster-like communities are likely to die off under continued assuaults from the content industry.