The Long Tail: How Technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches. (p. 15).
This passage from The Long Tail, pretty much sums it all up. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson is a good
and worthwhile read for information scientists, computer scientists, ecommerce researchers, and others interested
in all areas of Web research.
The central premise of the book is that the combination of (1) the Pareto or Zipf distribution (i.e., power
law probability distribution) that is characteristic ofWeb traffic and (2) the direct access to consumers via Web
technology has opened up new business opportunities in the ‘‘long tail’’. Producers and advertisers no longer
have to target ‘‘the big hits’’ at the head of the distribution. Instead, they can target the small, niche communities
or even individuals in the tail of the distribution.
The long tail is has been studied by Web researchers and has been noted in term usage on search engines,
access times to servers, and popularity of Web sites. Andersen points out that the long tail also applies to
products sold on the Web. He recounts that a sizeable percentage of Amazon sales come from books that only
sell a few copies, a large number of songs from Rhapsody get downloaded only once in a month, and a significant
number of movies from Netflix only get ordered occasionally. However, since the storage is in digital
form for the songs and music (and Amazon out sources the storage of books) there is little additional inventory
cost of these items. This phenomenon across all Web companies has led to a broadening of participation
by both producers and consumers that would not have happened without the Web.
The idea of the long tail is well known, of course. What Anderson has done is present it in an interesting
manner and in a Web ecommerce setting. He applies it to Web businesses and then relates the multitude of
other factors on-going that permit the actual implementation of the long tail effect. Anderson also expands
on prior work on the long tail by introducing an element of time, given the distribution a three dimensional
effect. All in all, it is a nifty idea.
The book is comprised of 14 chapters, plus an Introduction. Chapter 1 presents an overview of what the
long tail is. Chapter 2 discusses the ‘‘head’’, which is the top of the tail where the mega hits are. Chapter 3
presents a short history of the Long Tail (interesting play on words). Chapter 4 discusses the three forces
of the Long Tail (e.g., make it, get it out there, and help me find it), which was extremely interesting. I found
this section of the book very engaging and well done.
Chapter 5 discusses the new producers. Chapter 6 discusses the new market. Chapter 7 discusses the new
tastemakers. For me, these three chapters dragged. I could not wait to them to be over with.
However, the book picks up again with Chapter 8, the Long Tail economics. Chapter 9 discusses the short
head (significant linkage to Chapter 2). Chapter 10 is a very nice discussion on the pros and cons of choice,
ending with the position that almost always, more choice is better as long as the tools to make sense of it are
available. This chapter has a lot of application for Web search researchers. Chapter 11 discusses the niche culture
(links to Chapter 4).
The next three chapters were shaky in terms of supporting material. Chapter 12 was the infinite screen – the
move for video to be online instead of on television. Chapter 13 discusses the long tail beyond entertainment, to
manufacturing and services. This chapter has some attention-grabbing ideas. Chapter 14 was why the long tail
rules. These three chapters, although motivating in some respects, left more questions than they provided answers.
There was a short snippet at the end of the book on a three dimensional printer and why this might be the
long tail of tomorrow. Very interesting prediction of what may be possible in the near future. There is also a
very short and totally inadequate notes and sources section. A book with this reach, with so many linkages to
Web research, should be more adequately referenced.
There were a few positions taken in the book that were not well support or suffered from serious omissions.
In a discussion of the liberal ‘‘sharing of ideas’’ on the Web, the author quotes Thomas Jefferson who stated
that just because someone takes an idea, it doesn’t diminish the original idea at all. Certainly, there is an
element of truth to this statement. What the author fails to mention is that Jefferson died horribly in debt.
Additionally, while Jefferson certainly said this, he practiced something totally different. For example, he
was very protective of his authorship of the Declaration of Independence as noted by his response to the
Mecklenburg Declaration that called his authorship into question.