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.

Definition

[spuke4000]

What is the long tail? The summary, and TFA (I skimmed it so maybe I missed this) seem to indicate that the long tail theory means the more obscure stuff will be more popular. I thought it simply meant that you could make money off the obscure stuff when your distribution costs went to zero (because of the Internet). Am I missing something, or does the article interpret the idea of the long tail incorrectly?

Re:Definition

[DaveV1.0]

The idea that the internet is transforming our buying habits was first popularised in an article written by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the technology magazine Wired, in October 2004. The article, titled "The long tail", became a blog, a best-selling book and a marketing mantra.

Anderson's premise was simple. Before the internet, even the largest retailer had physical constraints on the variety of stuff like books, CDs and DVDs it could profitably sell. Savvy store owners had to tailor their stock to maximise returns from limited shelf space, and consumers had to make do with what was on offer.

In cyberspace, by contrast, shelf space is practically unlimited and other overheads at rock bottom. Online retailers can take advantage of that to sell vast catalogues of obscure products at little or no extra cost.

Anderson postulated that this new breadth of choice was leading to a metamorphosis of the classic demand curve. Instead of a steep peak representing comparatively few big-selling items, a gentler curve spread over far more products was emerging - creating the eponymous long tail (see graph).

To Anderson, this migration to the long tail is a journey of self-discovery for all of us. "As a teenager in the 1970s, I listened to one of the 10 radio stations on offer, but I'm not sure I really knew what my taste was." Now, he says, we are all finding out - and discovering that we like quite different things. His conclusion is summarised in the subtitle of his book: "The future of business is selling less of more".

For a visual, check out the graph in the article.

Re:Definition

[I Want to be Anonymo]

The phrase "long tail" has a couple of related, but different meanings - both from the shape of a graph of sales (or popularity) on the Y-axis.

In this case, the X-axis is a listing of different titles, sorted by popularity. There are a small number of extremely popular items, tailing off to huge numbers of less popular items.

In the other use, the X-axis is time. Something can be hugely popular for a few days/weeks/months, but will continue to have greatly diminished sales for many years to come.

The concept of the "long tail" is that the combined popularity or profitability of the items in the tail can be a significant part of the overall profitability of the entire market, particularly when internet sized economies of scale make it efficient to stock and sell these items.

Re:Definition

[vux984]

What is the long tail? The summary, and TFA (I skimmed it so maybe I missed this) seem to indicate that the long tail theory means the more obscure stuff will be more popular.

The long tail theory is:

1) More obscure stuff will be more profitable (because distribution costs are down - you can distribute electronic goods for practically nothing, and even real goods are more profitable because you can keep them in a warehouse in Wisconsin instead of taking up premium shelf space at a retail store downtown NYC)

2) Because its profitable, people will actually carry it.

3) Because people will carry it, people that actually want it will be able to find it and buy it.

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.

In reality, this doesn't seem to be happening.

Re:Definition

[routerl]

Picture a graph: the y-axis is popularity (i.e. numbers sold) and the x-axis is products (e.g. each point is a book). If all the most popular products (e.g. Harry Potter) are closer to the y-axis, and as you move away from the y-axis popularity decreases, you get a long tail on the graph.

The idea here is that stocking, e.g., a few copies of a LOT of relatively unpopular books, allows you to cater to niche markets and can significantly increase profits compared to only carrying products that are in high demand.

Companies like Amazon are masters at exploiting the long tail. Oh, and here is the original article describing this idea.

Re:Definition

[kkffjj]

spuke4000 - you are correct in what you do say: "I thought it simply meant that you could make money off the obscure stuff when your distribution costs went to zero (because of the Internet)." you are missing part of what the "longtail" means. It's not really that you "can make more money off the stuff" because before your costs went to zero, you had to make decisions not to sell stuff below a certain point in the tail. Not only has the stuff in the long tail become cost effective to sell, but (and this is as much a key as what you said) the stuff in the long tail has become "more discoverable" by consumers. (because of internet technology, namely recommendation engines, tagging, categorization, and social networking) The consumers "cost to discover" also goes way down. Read "the long tail" by chris anderson. His findings are all backed up by scientifically designed experiements and professional statistical analysis. with that said, I don't think blockbusters are going to suffer, they will still grow, but so too will the long tail titles. It's not a zero sum game. Even if dispiosable income stays the same, the cost of blockbusters has decreased, allowing more discretionary spend in the long tail....blah blah now im just speculating. happy holidays

Re:Definition

[JustinOpinion]

The summary sorta implies that "The Long Tail" means that the unpopular stuff will be more popular. But that isn't the theory, and TFA does a decent job explaining it. "The Long Tail" instead means that if production and distribution costs are low enough, a whole variety of niche products suddenly become viable. Traditionally people could only buy one of the top-10 books (or DVDs or whatever), because stores couldn't afford to stock anything but the best-sellers. But things like Amazon allow them to "stock" just about everything: so a previously untapped market appears, with stores catering to all of these niche buyers. The idea is that the potential in the long tail is massive: nothing in it is particularly popular or sells that many copies, but in aggregate it can be huge (maybe even bigger than the "best sellers"). This model has clearly worked for places like Amazon. Another stereotypical example is customized shoes or clothing; whereas traditionally you could only buy the shirts you saw at the local store, with the Internet you can buy all kinds of more niche styles. In fact, you can buy shirts that have user-chosen slogans or logos. The plethora of online stores that offer these services, or which capitalize on short-lived Internet memes by selling associated clothing, shows that this idea has merit.

The article notes that despite the long tail, we still have blockbusters. This isn't really in conflict with the theory of the long tail. Indeed the theory mostly talks about the (previously untapped) potential of the long tail... but blockbusters will always exist. TFA says that despite niche markets, most of the sales, and most of the money, still comes from the best-sellers or the blockbusters.

I think (part of) the explanation for this is from free content. I think that anyone trying to capitalize on the long tail will have a hard time competing with amateurs, enthusiasts, and free information. For mainstream content (e.g. a generic action movie), amateurs won't be able to compete with the budget and brand recognition of established studios. But for niche interests, amateurs will often be producing the "best content" and giving it away for free, making it impossible for commercial interests to capitalize on it. Think about the variety of niche blogs, forums, wikibooks, YouTube channels, creative commons music or books, and so forth.

So I would say that the long tail exists, and is healthy... but is harder to monetize than some people may have thought. The fact is that niche interests exist, but those niche communities are often finding that they can satisfy their needs themselves, leaving no room for commercial entities to capitalize.

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...

Re:Definition

[Anonymous Coward]

The above summary really is not correct. The "long tail economy" merely means that obscure tastes can be satisfied by the market if distribution and storage are low enough cost. Using an anecdote, I have a friend who sells light switch wall plates. These items are very decorative and are intended to replace the plain ones you can find in any hardware store. However, the market for such decorative items is small. Most people are content with the simple and functional ones that come with the house. If this store were a traditional brick and mortar building servicing a community of 10,000 then it would not be able to remain open. If the store were moved to a large city, such as Jacksonville then it might be able to eek out an existence. Even then, however, not many people would know about such a place even if they wanted it. However, if this place was merely and Internet store which produces those wall plates on demand (e.g. minimal warehouse cost and minimal distribution cost), then the store can be (has been) successful. It is not churning out thousands of orders per day, but a few orders per day can keep the semi-retired owner occupied and earning some cash. The heart of the "long tail economy" is to be able to provide for uncommon market segments more viably.

The long tail market is insignificant in size when compared to the mainstream market. However, if stores could provide shelf space for the popular items and still allow for special ordering of more obscure items, you get the same result. This does not predict that a small niche will out earn the mainstream market unless the mainstream market is oversold.

For example, if you have 20 pop radio stations competing for listeners and only one classic radio station (no other radio stations). Also assume that 90% of the radio-listening population enjoy pop, 5% enjoy classic, 3% enjoy punk, 1% enjoy Elvis Presley All Day Every Day, and the remaining 1% form assorted niches of other genres (I know this is not a realistic distribution). In this scenario, if all the pop radio stations were of similar quality the market would predict that each gets 4.5% of the listeners. The one classic radio station will get 5% of the listeners because they have no other choice. Everyone else forms a long tail because they are not able to listen to their favorite music at all. If the cost of operating a radio station were to be reduced or the revenue were to increase, it may become viable to start a punk radio station. However, if these demographics were more generally true and you could have a radio station at the same cost but service a radio-listening population that was 50% bigger, then the punk could compete with the rock stations. Unfortunately, the Elvis Presley All Day Every Day crowd will need more than a four-fold change. The other markets are even worse off.

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?

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[ZygnuX]

The guy who made the summary is the perfect politician. Able to fill a summary with words... but without saying anything!

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.

Re:What the?!?

[ubrgeek]

What the hell was that? Mattel's "My First Summary"?

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.

"selling less of more"

[fermion]

I believe this, not the headline, is the crux of the article

OTOH, it is clear that the way to make a lot of money as a retailer is to have the popular options at a low price, a la Wal Mart. As the article suggests, though, have a few niche items can make money, if you can get people to pay for therm.

Here is what I think. Stocking an item, even a virtual item, incurs a cost. So if one stocks a million different items, and only one thousand different items moves a week, then there are costs not being covered on an even yearly basis. One way to make this work it mark up items a lot, as in the used book store, wher a book can be bought for a dime and sold for a dollar.

To me the long tail means either selling in a high markup niche market, or having the ability to control costs so you can sell less of more different things and actually draw a profit. In either case, the long tail in going to be chanllenged in times that force are going to force some fiscal responsibility, and people are going to focus on necessities and cheap luxuries.

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.

Re:Clueless

[ZombieWomble]

While your point is somewhat valid, you're missing the crux of the argument presented in the original Wired article, which went somewhat beyond the simle "smaller costs make rarer sales profitable"

The idea was not only that the internet would enable sellers to tap into this market more effectively (through lower costs) but also that this would in turn lead to the tail becoming yet larger (both because increasing number of items sold means more potential sales, and because these rarer items may pick up additional momentum and sell more copies, thus giving more events with higher frequencies) as compared to the "blockbuster" events, which suffer due to increased choice.

More specifically, the issue is not "stuff one person will buy won't outsell stuff millions of people will buy" but rather "will many items purchased by a few people exceed the sales of a few items purchased by many people", given improved choice. The long tail hypothesis as presented in the Wired article says yes (or, at least, that the few-selling items will gain ground in the scenario presented by the internet) but evidence in this article says no. Perhaps still not the most shocking discovery in the world, but certainly a bit more than the trite discovery you make it out to be.

Also, as an aside, IQ is a very bad choice to illustrate the "long tail" because IQ is by definition normally distributed, and thus has a relatively short tail, as such things go - a long tail distribution is typically characterised by a significant slowdown in falloff as you move further from the median.

Re:Clueless

[An Onerous Coward]

I'm not sure how convincing the article's evidences are. For example, a study that says 0.4% of an online catalog are responsible for 80% of sales sounds damning. But where is the traditional sales outlet with 13 million items for us to compare it to?

I believe Wal-Mart stocks about 5000 CDs, or about 50,000 songs. That's roughly equivalent to the 52000 songs that constituted 80% of the online retailer's sales. But in Wal-Mart's case, 50,000 songs generate 100% of sales. So the dredges of that online catalog do generate a large number of sales.

If a song has a, say, 98% chance of only generating two or three plays (and zero sales), it's probably worthwhile to keep it in the catalog, just in case it breaks out. But to me, such numbers don't show that the site carries 98% crap. It's more likely that the site just isn't making the songs discoverable enough, or that they're not providing much incentive to explore.

If I were running such a site, and I wanted to get a better understanding of the hidden side of my catalog, I might offer random shoppers the opportunity to listen to five random-but-obscure songs (perhaps filtered by genre), rate them, and get a free download in return. They could also buy the songs at a discount if they liked it enough. That might give me more knowledge, which I could use to make better recommendations.

There might also be a way to stagger prices so that sales-free songs go for trivial sums ($.10 for the first purchaser, $.12 for the second, etc.), just to encourage dumpster diving.

The point is, the tools can be crafted so as to encourage the Long Tail phenomenon, or to undermine it. If the site doesn't have at least a "listen to something totally random" button, don't expect much out of the tail.

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:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

friends?

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.

They ignore personality

[greg_barton]

There's a certain segment of the population that enjoys finding obscure stuff. I'm not sure of the size, but I'd guess it's about the same size as the introverted segment of the population, around 25%, as the two behaviors are somewhat correlated. (i.e. folks who actively stray from the herd socially are more likely to express interest in consumables that are different from the herd's preferences) So, given that assumption, the drivers of a long tail market, "funky stuff seekers," could be overpowered by the general population.

On top of that, it's my guess that researchers in this area, as researchers in most areas, tend to be "funky stuff seekers" themselves. (I mean, it's their job to search and speculate on the edge of their field of study.) So, right off the bat, there's a bit of inherent bias in interpreting the effect of their cohort on the market. In other words, they're following the non-herd herd. :)

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

[D Ninja]

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.

Possibly. Or maybe you've just aged and your tastes have changed as they've become more refined (a nice way of saying you've become pickier). That sort of makes sense since you, being older now, are not the RIAA's primary target market (which tends to be in the teens, younger 20s, etc). Additionally, being older, you're also not as impressionable. A song that would have affected you at age 15 (when emotions were high, and many experiences were imprinting themselves on your mind) would barely make a dent now or may not even be noticeable.

There has been good stuff produced in the past 10 years. I know names like Britney Spears pops to mind when you think about the crap out there, but there are a lot of artists who are part of the big labels who don't get the same face or radio time for whatever reason.

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

[motek]

Quite obviously, it must exist. The lack of evidence simply means it is an invisible tail, well hidden from the eyes of the unsuspecting public. Probably some sort of conspiracy of the short-tailed...

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.

Missed the point

[characterZer0]

The habit (of wanting what everybody else wants) is not waning as selection and availability increase. The habit is reinforced by the increasing channels by which we can see what everybody else wants and adjust our own wants to that.

The Internet, while logistically making the long tail feasible, is socially making blockbusters bigger.

CAUTION!

[denzacar]

Or, you know...just search with Google for "The Long Tail".

Googling for the "long tail" in German may have unforeseen consequences.
Particularly if you do it at work.

But that's a simple Pareto distribution.

[Sique]

... also known (in a simplified form) as "Zipf's Law". The most popular word occurs twice as often as the second popular, three times the third popular, four times the fourth etc.pp.

If you look at the 10% most popular words in a table, you will notice that the absolute share of the upper 10% increases, if you count longer and longer texts with more and more individual words.

With 10 different words you get, that the first 10% make up ~34% of all words.

With 100 different words you get already ~56,5% share for the first 10% of words.

With 1000 words we have 69,2% share for the first 10%, with 10000 we come to ~76,5% share.

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?

[Floritard]

Yea no. That's better than say Disney and their offensive attempts at disabling parts of your remote during their previews, but it's still a far cry from ideal.

Remember when DVDs first came out? You could watch previews, if you actively looked for them on the disc. They were often sequestered in the special features menu. Which is ideal because trailers for future movies have a shelf life of a month or two. Whereas the movie you purchased is meant to last for years. That was the whole point of buying it in the first place. Once DVDs got a foothold in the market companies began forcing previews down your throat. They don't care that you really like this movie and intend on watching it multiple times over the years. They just want to make sure you see the new product they have coming out.

The new product which, if you're at all of discerning taste, is likely to be garbage. Garbage that parades around in front of you again and again each time you try to play your beloved movie. Anymore I just rip movies to my media server immediately after I get them. Then the next time I want to play the movie, it just starts. It starts up and I'm just there, in the movie. The whole point of the exercise in the first place. Every once in a while I just place the disc in the tray and play it the old fashioned way. And often I'm amazed how much useless bullshit I have to flip through to get to the fucking meat.

You can call it nitpicking. It's a very small amount of your time they're wasting. Any particular instance of it is insignificant. But think about the aggregate amount of time and energy wasted on such things over the course of the lifetimes of all consumers. For something that moves as fast as the modern world does, those little moments are more precious than people tend to realize. Especially when it is something that ultimately benefits neither party (spent, worthlessly old advertising). I paid you. Stop fucking with me and let me enjoy my purchase.

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.