Michael Geist, Internet and intellectual property law expert, writes in the Toronto Star  on how Canada's culture industries benefit from the Long Tail effect:

From a Canadian perspective, the importance of the Long Tail should resonate strongly with businesses and policy makers since we don't have to look very far for Long Tail markets - with few exceptions Canadian culture is in the Long Tail.

Where does this place civic culture?  With markets opening up to niches how can Calgary leverage the Long Tail?

Geist goes on to explain how the Internet plays a major role in distributing the specialized content found in the Long Tail.  This makes a lot of sense when looking at creative output of a city.  If Calgary is a city for the world, there needs to be a repository of our civic culture that the world can easily access.  Not only this, but Internet publishing makes Calgary culture available for Calgarians.  I know that I personally would love to have more local content coming in on my RSS feeds.

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