What can you buy for five dollars? takes you on a world wide tour of $5 items.

Last week I posted my brief thoughts on a Slate article that said the Long Tail might be all for nothing.

As a follow up a few links have been shared through a mailing list I’m subscribed to and I figured I’d share them here:

The Slate article was based on a study by Anita Elberse who’s article can be found here in Harvard Business Review.  Chris Anderson, author of “The Long Tail”, replied here and Anita responded to him here.

Seth Godin spoke up in defense of the Long Tail with this point:

A lot of people don’t seem to understand a key implication of the long tail: Given the choice, it’s better to make a hit.

If you have a choice of cutting a top 10 record or making a track of Jamaican polka music for iTunes, go for the hit.

Style Weekly’s Power List is out and rounding out the 75 are a couple familiar names among the RVA blogosphere:

75. Ross Catrow and John Murden

Richmond’s online community has a streak of serious civic engagement because of the infrastructure provided by John Murden and Ross Catrow. Murden built, modeled and then shared his template for neighborhood blogs. Now a dozen outlets across the city keep tabs on micropolitical issues and neighborhood meetings. Catrow’s aggregator, RVAblogs.com, serves as a central clearinghouse for each new post from more than 300 local writers on a myriad of topics, and a rash of play-by-play pregnancy stories. Their innovations have quickly built a new forum, nurtured a fresh pantheon of pundits and welcomed scorekeepers in the arena of public accountability.

Congrats to the gents.