The Long Tail of Human Potential
May 6, 2007 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Computers
Chris Anderson identifies that which fuels the emerging Earth, the Long Tail of human potential that lay untapped until aggregated by the Web: our own idle hands.
In physics, the greatest (theoretical) latent power in the universe is dark energy, waiting only for us to find a way to tap it (and to prove it actually exists; in the meantime it powers fictional superheroes). In people, the equivalent is “spare cycles”–the human potential that isn’t tapped by our jobs, which for most of us is a lot of it.
Spare cycles are the most powerful fuel on the planet. It’s what Web 2.0 is made up of. User generated content? Spare cycles. Open source? Spare cycles. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life? Spare cycles. They’re the Soylent Green of the web.
That’s why I love problogging. This job hyperefficiently utilizes spare cycles, letting you run on as many cylinders as your mind will allow.
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