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The Long Tail and it's Doubters

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mouser:
The Long Tail is a provactive book (based on an article by a Wired magazine editor), that talks about the new abilities for sellers to focus on (and make profit on) the items farther away from majority appeal.

See:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401302378

From a review of the book:
The long tail is the colloquial name for a long-known feature of statistical distributions that is also known as "heavy tails", "power-law tails" or "Pareto tails". In these distributions a high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually "tails off". In many cases the infrequent or low-amplitude events--the long tail--can cumulatively outnumber or outweigh the initial portion of the graph, such that in aggregate they comprise the majority. In this book the author explains how due to changing technology it is now not only feasible but desirable in business to cater to the "long tail" of this curve.

The author explains how in traditional retail, you have the 80/20 rule, with 20 percent of the products accounting for 80 percent of the revenue. Online, instead, he sees the "98 percent rule." Where 98 percent of all the possible choices get chosen by someone, and where the 90 percent that is only available online accounts for half the revenue and two-thirds of the profits. He also explains how filters and recommender systems that help people find what they are really looking for are crucial ingredients. Thus, in a nutshell, Anderson's theory is that mass culture is fading, and being replaced by a series of niches. Thus the subtitle of his book, "Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More."
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Today the wall street journal posted an interesting rebuttal opinion piece:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115387606762117314.html

Both the original article and rebuttal are well worth a read.

mouser:
some follow ups well worth reading:

http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/07/arguing_about_t.html
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/07/factchecking_my.html

mouser:
more:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/07/lee_gomes_respo.php

JavaJones:
Why does it have to be one or the other? Cater to both, get the whole market. :D

- Oshyan

housetier:
Let's play with words a little. It won't be sound at all so don't get worked up over it.

We pick a The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.
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This could mean you have fewer customers to which you provide more services. When we take that to extremes, you might have 1 (one) customer only, for whom you do everything. "Customer" of course means someone you give something (in this case almost everything) to, and from whom you get something else in return, money maybe. (Is your head spinning fast enough yet?)

Now, to entirely depend on one person only means you either have an extremely close relationship (child-parent) or you are a slave and master. (NOW I got yer heads in a spin, right?)

By now you are wondering where the connection to the original post is. When we accept the stretches and re-definitions of words and put them back into the original quote, we could say: The Future of Business is Slavery.
--- End quote ---

 ;) :D :P

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