Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail"
Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine, has a new book, "The Long Tail," in which he discusses, you guessed it, the long tail. He masterfully describes in great detail the mechanisms at work, changing our consumption habits, and further segmenting us, not by geography, age or skin color, but by our common interests. Chris says:
"Instead of the office watercooler, which crosses cultural boundaries as only the random assortment of personalities found in the workplace can, we're increasingly forming our own tribes, groups bound together more by affinity and shared interests than by default broadcast schedules. These days our watercoolers are increasingly virtual-there are many different ones, and the people who gather around them are self-selected. We are turning from a mass market back into a niche nation, defined now not by our geography but by our interest."
The long tail is essentially the relationship between the hits, and everything else. Hits have the biggest sales, and everything else, much smaller. The top 100 hits individually might far outsell the rest, but the increasingly abundant tail provides a huge profit center when sales are combined.
This is shown in the graph below
But now, we're seeing a shift from the top 100 (the head) and more power and profits to the tail (everything else). Although, Chris shows off some technical chops in the book, I'll leave it to you to read the book for further explanation.
The real power in this book is more from a cultural standpoint, rather than a purely economic one. As we see companies like Netflix, Amazon, Itunes, etc. extend the tail further and further, the hits get less impactful. As the tail gets longer, the tools of production get less expensive, and the filters that help us search the tail get better, we can see this shift happening.
It's happening on our television sets, our computers, our supermarkets, and our theaters. As the Internet grows, it allows us to have, as Chris says "the Paradise of Choice" and the means by which to find the things that interest us most, no matter the producer. It's an increasingly decentralized version of the media power structure that's falling apart today. As Chris puts it:
"Every time a new technology enables more choice, whether it's the VCR or the Internet, consumers clamor for it. Choice is simply what we want and, apparently, what we've always wanted."
This is a must read for anyone proclaiming the successes of new media, and both technically and rhetorically brings to light how we have been and will be affected by our new digital landscape, and the explosion of the niche,
Now, if you have an interest in the book, I will very web2.0ishly be offering to pass it right along down the line. The first one to post a comment or send me an email gets the book, and I'll have it shipped out to you on Wednesday.
Any takers?