Just read the article on Wired.com magazine

books:


	• The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More Chris Anderson Hyperion, 2006 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 173 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Wow

Excellent. Shines light on a fascinating concept. Offer growth potential for hundreds of fields. Samuel R Daines II.

Extremely Relevant

Smart, relevant, and on point, this book is a good read for anyone interested in the evolution of product valuing and Internet-based business modeling. Part social and cultural review, part business process review, it speaks to how gone are the days of company driven, long-lasting big hits, which where primarily created from limited availability of information about people and entertainment products. The digital world of the Internet has created microcosms of connoisseurs who are reshaping what's considered popular, which is, in turn, reshaping Internet-based company business models and revenue sources. In a digital world, more product can be made available with far less overhead because it doesn't take up physical space. What the Long Tail says is that this allows a broader range of purchasing options to the consumer, which then results in increased revenue even if a given song, for example, is only purchased by a mere few people.

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Simple, Smart Premise No Longer Ignored

"The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson claims that thar's gold in them thar hills. He tells us it is not a few big chunks we want, but many small nuggets.

Modern examples are Amazon.com and NetFlix, both of which sell plenty of Harry Potter products and the like. They also (or rent, as is with NetFlix) lots of less popular products. They hit the niche market hard. That's the gold.

The long tail is the curve's far end. At the top of the curve is Harry Potter, for example, along with other New York Times Bestsellers. These products certainly represent a significant amount of sales. However, so do the accumulated number of books and movies which might sell only a few copies a year. Add those up, and there is serious profit. While the tail in the curve is not high, it is long. One copy of, say. The Love, a Hungarian film, and one copy of The Very Best of Ralph Stanley, a bluegrass CD, might not sound like much, but the tail is long. Those, with thousands of other products sold each month, would make their seller very happy.

My own business is built on a long tail method. The market for Hungarian products is not like the Billboard Top 40. It is like the Billboard Bottom 20,000, if there were such a thing. It works.

Anderson's principles can be applied by small businesses like mine, and massive Fortune 500s looking to reach where few are reaching. The markets are there, and, by considering Anderson's ideas, so is the process.

I fully recommend "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

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Just read the article on Wired.com magazine

Mr. Anderson's book is based on his article from wired magazine. The article says it all. You don't need to read the book. In fact the book didn't really need to be published. There is not enough material for a book. The concept is simple and you get the picture in the first chapter. The rest of the book is just filler so that it has more weight than a pamphlet and you will but it. There are some supporting facts, but mostly they are case examples that are too lengthy and off the main point.

The marketing concept is that when (as now) the cost of connecting consumers to vendors reaches zero vendors can offer limitless variety and there will (and is) demand for everything, mainstream and the unusual. We already know this from experience in today's world but might not have realized it. Anderson sums it up nicely in a matchbook cover. I'm glad that statistics have shown American's are not as culturally mainstream as I once thought. Its the medium of the marketplace that has been to blame and not our limited imaginations. Lets hope our "culture" is able to grow from our new ability to experience more than the mainstream.

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Niches are the new growth

The Long Tail is an interesting theory, covering a new aspect of demand that is not shaped by the scarcity of a physical economy. According to the author the tail shape of the demand curve, in almost any industry, carries value as goods and services are not determined only by best sellers or hits. Flow from production to the end consumer is then unlimited and niches become revelant markets in a digital economy. However, the book devotes much of its chapters and examples to the entertainment industry. But fails to capitalize on how such theory would be applied to the economies of scale of actual manufacturers of physical goods. Economic theory of production also takes into account the scarcity of the resources -human and material- required to create physical products. It is however a best scenario presented about how the digital economy is shaping demand and people and companies taking advantage of it.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

"The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google. However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know. The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of whats commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.

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