Doubts Multiply About the "Long Tail"

fruey sends in a New Scientist analysis of the many second thoughts about the Long Tail theory. It summarizes four studies that show, in different markets, that the tail is both flatter and thinner than originally supposed, and that blockbusters are not going away in those markets — they are getting bigger. It's theorized that widely used collaborative filtering software is magnifying the winners' share of the various pies, and peer influence is a large contributor to consumer behavior.

Comments

Sounds like he got the long tail

[thedonger]

Looks like he got his long tail, but I don't know why anyone would expect Harry Potter to sell less simply because someone could chose to get some out-of-print book or the like. Fill Barnes and Noble with shitty fantasy that will never sell and HP will still break records. The Internet can't change that.

Re:Sounds like he got the long tail

[CyberLord Seven]

"The Long Tail" did not suggest that Harry Potter would sell less. It suggested that a less well-known, or liked, book could make as much money as a Harry Potter or more because the internet would allow those who liked such things to find them more easily.

For instance, we all know about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button because of all the advertisement money spent on it and the use the Oprah Winfrey's show as an additional ad vehicle along with "E" and other such crap that fills the airwaves.

If "The Long Tail" is accurate, then there could be a much smaller independant movie that will could be released at the same time as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and that will make as much money as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but in a longer time frame. This is because you and I think this independant movie stinks when we hear about it, but your neighbor and mine thinks it's the Bee's Knees and search out art-house showings and buy the DVD and watch it whenever it shows on the Idependant Film Channel and Sundance and spread the word so that the thing takes on it's own life in a manner similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Of course, if "The Long Tail" is wrong, then this independant film will more likely resemble "Howard The Duck".

Re:Sounds like he got the long tail

[An Onerous Coward]

I don't think that's what The Long Tail says at all. It doesn't say that an obscure indie movie or book should make as much as a blockbuster. It just says that the indie movie ought to be able to make money now, when it would have lost money under older distribution systems.

The indie movie shouldn't need to gather a huge cult following. It just needs to find the audience that would enjoy watching it. That wouldn't have happened under the old 'roll out in thirty theaters nationwide model'. According to the new doubters, it may still not be happening.

Re:Sounds like he got the long tail

[GiMP]

Of course, if "The Long Tail" is wrong, then this independant film will more likely resemble "Howard The Duck".

Which coincidentally enough, just made it onto Hulu this week! I intend to watch it again, as I was strange enough to have loved this as a child. It was my favorite movie, in fact.

It had to happen sooner or later

[Anonymous Coward]

A summary that told me so much, yet so little.

"Long Tail theory" No idea. Apparently I missed an article somewhere.

"flatter and thinner" I gotto admit, tails in an evolutionary sense popped to mind here for some reason. Though the mention of markets made that an obvious red herring.

"blockbusters are not going away" Aha, movies!

"widely used collaborative filtering software is magnifying the winners' share of the various pies" Say what?

They can't HANDLE the long tail!

[Dr_Barnowl]

Of course they want to sell you new media. Old media has the unfortunate quality of being old. Should copyright extension insanity ever end, old content is closer to becoming free content.

If they can induce you to fill your time with new, "premium" content by splashing adverts at you and skewing selection algorithms on Amazon and the like, they will prefer to every time. New stuff commands a higher price. New stuff has higher margins. New stuff keeps the media industry running, and they have clout.

Old stuff is, like, yesterdays stuff. Even if it's better.

Consumers change slowly..

[Vellmont]

It's pretty silly to expect that everyone is going to change their behavior immediately due to increased availability of a larger variety of goods. When cable came along and people were given a larger amount of choice of television programming viewing habits didn't change overnight, they changed over decades.

People are creatures of habit. It'd be more interesting to see if the variety of goods people buy varies with age. If so, expect that "long tail" to eventually appear as the population turns over.

Clueless

[mcgrew]

from the comments, the "long tail theory" is misunderstood by most slashdotters (at least, the few who are showing up today, most of whom, it seems, are in my "freaks" list judging from the comment moderations).

TFA was incredibly bring and unnecessarily wordy, as if the author had little to say and vast tracts of text to say it in.

Wikipedia refers to:

1. The Long Tail, a consumer demographic in business
2. Power Law's long tail, a statistics term describing certain kinds of distribution
3. Long-tail boat, a type of watercraft native to Southeast Asia
4. Long-tail distribution, a probability distribution is one that assigns relatively high probabilities to regions far from the mean or median.
5. Long-tail traffic, telecommunication traffic that exhibits a Long-tail distribution

Obviously it's not referring to a boat or telecommunbications traffic. What it does refer to is a statistical curve on a graph. Take IQ. If your IQ is 100, you are on the top of the bell curve, the median. If your IQ is over 150 you are close to the extreme end of the "long tail".

The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article[1] to describe the niche strategy of businesses, such as Amazon.com or Netflix, that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities.

The concept of a frequency distribution with a long tail -- the concept at the root of Anderson's coinage -- has been studied by statisticians since at least 1946.[2] The distribution and inventory costs of these businesses allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers, instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The group that purchases a large number of "non-hit" items is the demographic called the Long Tail.

Given a large enough availability of choice, a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve, or Pareto distribution. This suggests that a market with a high freedom of choice will create a certain degree of inequality by favoring the upper 20% of the items ("hits" or "head") against the other 80% ("non-hits" or "long tail").[3]

The theory is that if you have warehousing costs, it isn't profitable to stock items that don't sell well. On the other hand, if your warehousing costs are zero, any sale is profitable.

The article (what I read of the boring thing) didn't say much of anything except "stuff one person will buy won't outsell stuff millions of people will buy"

In short, DUH. hardly profound.

Re:Clueless

[swillden]

The article (what I read of the boring thing) didn't say much of anything except "stuff one person will buy won't outsell stuff millions of people will buy"

In short, DUH. hardly profound.

Well, it's hardly profound if you oversimplify it and misstate it.

The idea behind the long tail was that the massive variety that on-line retailers can offer, as compared to brick and mortar retailers who have severe shelf-space constraints, would lead people to find and buy more obscure stuff.

No one really expected the obscure stuff to outsell the popular stuff, but there was an expectation that some of the dollars formerly directed to popular stuff would get spread instead across the more obscure stuff. This would cause the sales of popular stuff to flatten a little and the "long tail" of obscure stuff to thicken a little.

That seems pretty reasonable on its face, but it's apparently not what happens.

It appears, in fact, that without the friction imposed by retailer shelf-space decisions the blockbuster effect is enhanced. When millions of products are available, people pay even more attention to peer recommendations, and that drives a more powerful blockbuster effect. The use of automated popularity-based recommendation software probably adds to the effect as well.

Is that profound? You decide. I think it's at least interesting.

Seriously

[Thelasko]

are you going to sit at your computer and listen to every sample iTunes has to offer and pick out the ones you like best, or are you just going to buy what your friends recommend?

Re:I, for one, am not part of the long tail..

[clam666]

I stopped buying CDs when the music companies started sueing their own customers.

You too? I thought I was the only one. I rarely bought music in the past, then downloaded a few songs which I would never have paid for but just wanted to hear. Then the RIAA started with their crap and I stopped listening to it all. There's nothing like being blamed for their crappy product. I mean, have the major labels actually put out that much good music in the last 10 years to even download? It seems like the bar has gotten awfully low.

As far as the "long tail" theory, I'm surprised that it was accepted that much at the time. Anderson sounded like the he had the same kind of glazed eye look about the future of the internet as the Web 2.0/Social networking people do when you talk to them.

Do people fundamentally change when they have more than one option to choose? I would have guessed rarely. Just because people have more choices does not mean they make statistically random choices. People have far greater psychological issues about what they choose and why they choose them than just availability. People like to be on the bandwagon and choose what their friends do, they like to choose things they've heard of and feel safe about, what's been recently marketed to them, comfort foods vs. healthy foods, etc.

Although we are all unique individuals following the herd, we by-and-large make the same choices about things, with a little bit of variance thrown in to keep it interesting. Raise your hand if you've never eaten at a McDonalds or drank a Coke before.

The internet may offer a wide variety of things in theory, but in reality it is businesses trying to offer customers the products that will give them the best ROI, and that means you'll make more money off the herd than a few outsiders demanding obscure products and services.

It makes sense to push items that the herd wants to buy. It makes sense to push the same things the other players are pushing and focus on better volume marketing, rather than pushing obscure things that a relatively few want and spending more money on targetted advertising.

The consumer follows the same approach as others, otherwise Walmart would not have been able to be in the position it's in.

I don't think so

[the eric conspiracy]

The markets studied in this work are notorious for being driven by short term fads. Online downloads are by predominantly ephemeral pop music, and a study of 14,000 teenagers? These are the people most influenced by peers and the 'so last week' attitude, They haven't had the time to explore and broaden their outlook.

Try getting a more diverse sample and I think that the long tail will look a lot fatter. People in their 30's and up have had time to develop far more diversified tastes and will have much more eclectic buying habits.

Pick a cohort of 14,000 boomers and you will see something very different.

Not exactly.

[khasim]

"The Long Tail" did not suggest that Harry Potter would sell less. It suggested that a less well-known, or liked, book could make as much money as a Harry Potter or more because the internet would allow those who liked such things to find them more easily.

Not exactly.

It is the hypothesis that ALL of the non-Harry Potter books COLLECTIVELY will sell as much or more than the Harry Potter books themselves.

Even that is wrong. It isn't a single book or a single series. It's the percentages. It is the hypothesis that the 80% of lesser selling titles will equal or exceed the sales of the top 20%. Or 90% / 10%. Or wherever you want to make the cut.

In theory, it is easy to demonstrate. Suppose there are 2 blockbusters released in a category ... and the average person buy 10 items in that category. So, 20% of the sales would go to the blockbusters ... but 80% would go to the "long tail".

The problem is that the average person does NOT operate that way. They might by the latest Harry Potter book ... and no other book that year. The same with music. The same with movies.

Re:Definition

[sfsp]

My personal experience is that the part of your thesis that isn't happening is Step 4:

4) Because people can find and buy the obscure stuff they want they'll spend less on the popular stuff they don't want as much. So the blockbusters will lose some of their sales to the obscure stuff.

It seems to me that blockbusters are getting bigger, AND the tail is getting longer. More money is being spent at both ends of the curve. This would imply that the curves in the New Scientist article graphic are incorrect: the long tail isn't stealing dollars from the blockbusters. It's not a zero-sum game.

Of course, throw in a tanking economy and all bets are off...

Long Tail != No More Blockbusters

[sac13]

The article was generally ok, but clearly not completely understanding of what the "Long Tail" means. Of course, from what I've read (including the book itself) the interpretations and applications of the theory are rather fluid anyway.

The biggest issue I have with the article is that it seemed to be conveying that the "Long Tail" meant an end to blockbusters. It doesn't mean that at all. It just means that there's enough business in the "Long Tail" to make it profitable to sell items that weren't blockbusters given the low cost structures of Internet retailing. Amazon and iTunes both make hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly on items that only sell 2 or 3 copies. With traditional retailers, space is a limited commodity and must be devoted to items that will sell in enough volume to justify carrying them.

Now, IANAPhd, and the article quotes quite a few that seem to disagree with the idea of the "Long Tail", but it seems the evidence they discuss is rather weak. Yes, people are influenced by others in their choices. Much of this comes from the vast history of humanity and our tendency to form social groups. The Internet has yet to truly begin to change humanity in the ways that it will. The key thing with respect to the article is the definition of what our peer groups are. Despite the global nature of the Internet, most of our peer influence is local. As more and more people around the world connect and begin to actually talk to others outside their current peer groups, those peer groups will expand and change. That is going to be a key driver in generating the diversity that the "Long Tail" predicts.

The "Long Tail" is only beginning because humanity's experience with the Internet and the interconnectedness that it brings is only beginning. Just because it hasn't completely happened doesn't mean that it's not happening.

Warez

[retech]

The internet does not increase taste. It may increase choice, but the tastes of people remain the same. If you appeal to the lowest common denominator you flood the market.

Case in point, warez sites. Troll them for 30 minutes and you'll be hard pressed to NOT find a flood of the same 10 movies, CDs, books etc. Even when stealing the product people do not go for the avant-garde or the art house, they go for the same 10 things that are hot.. NOW. Yes, you can find the other obscure stuff, but you have to dig long and hard for it. And in the end, it's the same very small circle of people that do that. The masses want what they want. It's called MASS APPEAL for a reason.

Long Tail is not an *automatic* win

[IGnatius T Foobar]

The long tail is alive and well. I think some people seem to have gotten the crazy idea that implementing it meant that you'd have an automatic win. In reality, most of the basic rules of business still apply. You still have to deliver a quality product at a fair price, you still have to provide good service and a friendly buying experience ... in short, you can't be a piece of crap e-commerce company and still expect that the world will beat a path to your door simply because you offer a huge selection. Amazon got it right. iTunes got it right. The basic premise of Long Tail still holds water: if you can connect a near-infinite number of buyers with a near-infinite number of selections, then you don't have to be the market leader selling the big blockbuster hits in order to turn a profit. But you can't suck either; Long Tail doesn't change that.

Re:Where do free items fit in?

[CyberLord Seven]

Ummmm. I don't like watching movies or television shows on a computer. That's why I buy (yes, I actually pay) for DVDs.

Or, at least, I used to. A few years ago I got sick and tired of being FORCED to watch advertisements for movies I will NEVER watch, and FBI warnings that mean nothing to me. So, I stopped buying DVDs.

Now I just watch them at the theatre if I think they will be good or just wait for them to appear on U-Verse.

***offtopic***Will someone tell those ass-wipes in Hollyweird that they are losing valuable customers with this practice of putting in useless ads and trying to force people to watch them. I have DVDs that are getting long in the tooth and it's kind of sickening to see ads for movies that have come and gone. Why can't things be like my DVD of The Matrix? When I put The Matrix into my DVD Player, the thing starts at the movie! What a unique concept! DUMBASSES!

Don't even get me started on Blu-Ray. I'm supposed to buy my movie collection again just to get innundated with the same crap?***offtopic***

Long tails definitely work for pr0n

[Dr. Spork]

I remember years ago when porn customers were happy enough to see a video of good looking people having sex. Now I have the impression that entire companies are surviving off the money of "long tail" customers who want to see shemales fuck midgets inside of a walk-in freezer.

And as we all know, where porn goes everyone else follows.

Re:Where do free items fit in?

[Ed Avis]

It's not Disney who are disabling your remote. It is your remote control and DVD player that are broken. Disney are simply exploiting flaws in the player to make you watch what they want.

Why can't you buy a DVD player that has more sensible behaviour? Because of the DVD cartel that insists on this anti-user behaviour. If there were a competitive market in DVD players (e.g. if the necessary patents were licensed at the same rate to all manufacturers, regardless of whether they implement region coding or no-skip or other obnoxious features) then this crap would soon disappear.

Blaming Disney is a distraction. Focus on the real source of the problem. It's the same thing as blaming movie studios for not letting you watch a film on a non-HDCP display, when in fact it is the operating system (Windows Vista or Mac OS X) that enforces this restriction on you.