By Karen Takle Quinn, Ph.D.
Chris Anderson shows in The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (NY: Hyperion Press, 2006. ISBN 1-4013-0237-8) how the Internet is changing the way everyone does business. He suggests that the future of commerce and culture isn’t in high volume hits but in what used to be regarded as misses—the endless long tail of that same curve. Many years of research have gone into this book. It is partly an economics research project. Economics seeks to find neat, easily understood frameworks that describe real world phenomena. Anderson, as editor-in-chief of Wired, first published his “tail” ideas in an article in the October 2004 issue. This article became the most citied article Wired had ever run. In statistics, curves like those described are called “long-tail distributions.” Anderson coined the term “The Long Tail” to help to explain how our culture and economy is shifting focus away from the head, “mainstream products and markets,” toward the tail, the “ever-expanding universe of niche products and businesses.” Many suggest that The Long Tail is the most important business book since The Tipping Point. It was selected by Business Week as one of the best 2006 business books. It reveals that companies are seeing demands in categories that had previously been dismissed, and it reports that everything a company puts out finds a demand of some sort. The economics of ”online” keeps going while the traditional retailer is influenced and limited by shelf space and the cost of maintaining inventories. The infrequent sellers have value in the online market even though they are only selling in small numbers because their aggregates add up to big business. Anderson suggests that letting people choose for themselves will create new opportunities for consumers and businesses.
Image from jacket cover of The Long Tail.
In The Long Tail Anderson shows how the Internet is changing the way everyone is doing business and revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it. He points out, for example, that the tail of available variety is far longer than we realize; that it is now within reach economically; and that all those niches, when aggregated, can make up a significant market. The importance of the graphic labeled "The Radical New Shape of Culture and Commerce" on the jacket cover of the book is that it shows that the future of commerce and culture isn't in the high-volume head of the traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as "the misses," the endlessly "long tail" of that same curve.
He strongly asserts that the mass market is giving way to “a mass of niches.” As the Net relentlessly cuts the cost of finding and distributing products, it’s accelerating the arrival of entirely new markets for obscure books, movies, games, foodstuffs, and more. Now, niche products can be stocked efficiently in warehouses, ordered by anyone with a computer and credit card, and shipped cheaply around the world. Does that spell the end of the Hollywood blockbuster? Some of Anderson’s claims maybe exaggerated, but The Long Tail is one very thought-provoking book.
I especially like statements of praise made by Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm:
“The Long Tail catches the world’s economy at a fundamental nexus of change. Blockbuster models, Pareto’s Law, ever-shortening life cycles, rock star dependencies---all are receding in relevance and importance. In their place a new Internet-enabled economy is embracing more collaborative, participative, and idiosyncratic offerings, and knocking the old Guard on its backside in the process. Chris Anderson depicts the emerging dynamics of this new world with insight, wit, and style, so put this book atop of the rest of your bedside reading and enjoy.”
Karen Takle Quinn, Ph.D. can be reached at [email protected]
© 2007 Karen Takle Quinn, Ph.D.
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