Over at The Long Tail, Chris Anderson isn’t thrilled with the term “filters”:

One of the themes that I’m developing in the book is the notion that “a Long Tail without good filters is just noise.” But what are good filters?

To begin, I’m using the catch-all term “filters” (which I’m not crazy about; anyone got a better word?) to describe the tools that help you find what’s right for you in the massive variety of the Long Tail. The examples I use most often are search and recommendations from either people (be they influential bloggers or just friends) or software, such as Amazon-style collaborative filtering (”people like you bought…”).

I don’t have a problem with “Filters,” other than the fact that they imply some sort of absolute definition of Signal.

As an alternative, then, how about “lenses?” A lens is a device which allows you to focus at specific points along a dimension. I think that much of the benefit of the long tail is the idea that you can find (focus on) your specific interests among the offerings within the tail. Extending the metaphor, a Magnifying Lens lets you get a lot of detail at a particular depth, usually at the cost of focal depth (how much of the dimension is unblurred).

Extending the metaphor even further, a wide-angle lens can let you see more than you might have normally, but often at the cost of strange visual effects which don’t create an accuration depiction of reality (causative correlation, anyone?).

In case the horse isn’t dead yet, throw in the Fresnel Lense, which basically inverts the focusing process, letting a designated point produce a disporportionate amount of visibility (similar to Anderson’s “Pre-Filter”).

Works for me.