The Long Tail …
Lately, I have been reading a lot about the “Long Tail” of everything. The phrase - The Long Tail - was first used by Wired Magazine’s editor Chris Anderson. The concept drew in part from an influential essay by Clay Shirky, “Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality” that noted that a relative handful of weblogs have many links going into them but “the long tail” of millions of weblogs may have only a handful of links going into them. Anderson went on to extend on that same idea by drawing a perspective on the effects of the long tail on current and future business models.
Anderson argued that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Examples of such mega-stores include the online retailer Amazon.com and the online video rental service Netflix. The Long Tail is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, successfully tapping in to that long tail market is often enabled by the distribution and sales channel opportunities the Internet creates.
What I found more interesting was a blog post by Excite.com co-founder Joe Kraus. Joe’s post was specifically on “the long tail of software“. Joe’s explanation of - how excite failed to capitalize on the long tail of search engine traffic and how Google became what it is today by figuring out exactly how to do that - is absolutely brilliant ! I strongly advice you download the presentation done by Joe, its a pitch for JotSpot.com, but worth going through.
Commentary : After having immersed myself in the idea of “selling to millions of markets of dozens rather than dozens of markets of millions” , I am drawing examples from almost everything I do. I can now relate to the ‘long tail’ experience even when I look at my blog traffic stats ! I suggest you read the post and you’ll soon be able to do the same.
[tags]the long tail, long tail of software, chris anderson, joe kraus, jotspot, wired magazine, amazon wishlist [/tags]
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[...] Remember my post from coupla months back on the subject of “The Long Tail“? Well, if you do, I am sure you can also remember my fondness for Joe Kraus’s idea about the ‘Long Tail of Software’ and especially his PowerPoint pitch for his company JotSpot.com [...]
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