Justin Bieber or: How I Learned About Things I Never Wanted To

I think it's weird how within a month our class can be introduced to the two conflicting ideas of the Internet popularizing the 'Long-Tail' and of a "Google-archy." Call it confirmation bias, but I would put more stock in a long tail internet model than Google. Actually, considering Google's stock, I'd probably invest more in them but it was a crappy metaphor to begin with.
Anywho, I will concede that Google is the starting point of the World Wide Web as we know it, and there is nothing Bing can do to topple that throne (as of now.) However, for the most part Google's search is neutral; their algorithm does it's best to find the most relevant site for your search. It just so happens that the biggest sites do happen to be the most relevant. And though they usually have either the advantage of time and/or affiliations with like, CNN or something; those sites deserve to be up there. They got there first and have been able to adapt and keep themselves relevant.
However, the fact that anyone is on top doesn't make it so others can't get noticed, and there is greater proof of a little guy hitting it big on the internet than there is a big guy hogging up all of the views.

My eponymous evidence is Justin Bieber, and his really is the type of story what typifies the type of thing that the internet allows to happen, for better or worse, and to a generally higher degree than most. Justin started off on Youtube as some nobody Canadian singing covers of popular songs. He inexplicably got popular and now everyone knows his name. There was no reason that he should have been popular other than people found him and liked him; the right people mind you, but enough where those people were willing to risk stardom on him. A similar story could be found in in people such as Bo Burnham and Lucas Cruikshank who started as comedians on Youtube and are now popular enough to each be getting their own TV shows or something I think. I know Burnham has one in production, and I don't care enough about Fred to check about the status of his, though I do know that there are DVD Fred movies that they sell at Toys R' Us.


But aside from measuring popularity by seeing who can be popular outside the internet; we can look at sites that suddenly sprung up from nowhere. The "Ur Example" one would probably have to be Facebook; which came out of a small college project and grew to over shadow it's contemporaries of Friendster and Myspace; and even became big enough to resist Google's attempted take of it's audience. Other examples in many different corners of the internet could be Perez Hilton, one of the web's biggest celebrity gossip blogs; NewEgg and online only retailer that can compete with the likes of Best Buy; or Destructoid, a gaming site that was originally started as a ploy to get into an industry-exclusive trade-show. 

Sure, there are plenty of sites on the web that don't get seen, and that are overshadowed by bigger sites. But those sites simply do things better. Google and the Internet aren't in the market of catering to the big-boys, they cater to the audience and the audience wants what's best. To get found you have to deserve to be found, and the only thing preventing that is how good of a content producer you can be.