Classes of the Week

If you’ve ever read “The Long Tail,” you’re familiar with the idea that niche items, though small parts of the overall whole, can become statistically significant when looked at in aggregate. Though I’ll spare everyone the economics speak, or facts about Netflix, iTunes, or Amazon, the fact is, each of these companies has applied the idea of the long tail to e-commerce. And in doing so, each has forever changed the conventional brick and mortar shopping experience in their respective industries.

Creative Commons: The Long Tail | Tim Wilson

Though we at TeachStreet aspire to do for classes what Amazon did for books, we realize full well that we’re a month old. And though close with respect to geographic proximity, perhaps that’s where we’d draw the line.

Although the comparison does hold true in one way: just as the sum of the less popular books on Amazon comprises a large portion of overall sales, the sum of niche classes on TeachStreet comprises a large portion of the classes on the site.

• “Fights, Squibs, & Car Crashes; how to make an action movie” - taught by ASUW (in Ravenna).

• “Soap Making” - taught by Seattle Free School (downtown).

• “Argentine Tango” - taught by Sonny and Nancy Newman (in Greenwood).

• “Mold-O-Rama” - taught by Jen Mills (in Seward Park).

• “Group Chess Classes” - taught by Checkmater (in Sammamish).

Though the majority of the classes on the site are taught by yoga teachers, guitar instructors, and Spanish tutors (all of whom have hundreds of great offerings in their own right), folks are also discovering a number of other classes that might not necessarily grace the pages of your typical directory

So whether you want to be the next Steve McQueen or Gary Kasparov, hopefully you’ll find a class among this week’s featured classes that fits the bill.