Abstract

I propose a synthesis between two important phenomena which were discovered at the beginning of the 21st. century: Friedman’s Flat World (FW), and Anderson’s Long Tail (LT) Society. While FW is a macro Political-Economic analysis of the Globalization, LT is a micro Economic-Organizational analysis of a firm or an industry. <p> Web 2.0 with Blogs, Wikis, Social Networks, etc, can be regarded as the molecular mechanism which enables the flattening of the world on a global scale and on a vertical scale. </p><p> I call these synthesis: Flat Tail World (Flat World + Long Tail). I argue that Postmodernism entails the wisdom of the crowd (micro-pluralism) of the long tail. It also entails the macro-pluralism of economic-political power between West (USA and Europe) and East (China and India). Thus, Web 2.0 is the technological component, and Postmodernism is the cultural component, of the “Flat Tail Society”. </p><p> Anderson, Chris (2006). <i>The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.</i> New York: Hyperion </p><p> Friedman Thomas (2005) <i>The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.</i> New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux James Surowiecki (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Randomhouse</p>