How has the Internet changed the way existing mass communications media reach their audiences in an era of 24/7 communication and niche marketing? How does the "long tail” fit into the picture?
Chris Anderson, executive editor of WIRED magazine, started it with an Here's the article, in Wired magazine in 2004 called "The Long Tail" ... catchy title, huh?:
Some highlights. The long tail, says Anderson, is:
... not just a virtue of online booksellers; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, one that is just beginning to show its power. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).More on the long tail ...
An analysis of the sales data and trends from these services and others like them shows that the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today's mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.
For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.
- A sales pitch on the SiteSell.com website, which produces website-building software for small businesses, summarizes Anderson's theory in a sales pitch for its services. Note: I'm not endorsing the product. I just think the summary is useful.
- Matt Bailey, the founder of a Web marketing consulting company, discusses in his Search Engine Guide blog how keyword strategies bring customers - and potential sales - to a small business website ... and links to an awesome frequency distribution graph that illustrates the long tail.
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