The Long Tail
The Radical New Shape of Culture and Commerce
By: Chris Anderson
Published: July 11, 2006
ISBN: 1401302378
Format: Hardcover, 256pp
Publisher: Hyperion
Forget the old marketing rules about hits, best sellers, and chart toppers. According to Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail The Radical New Shape of Culture and Commerce, those marketing concepts no longer exist in the traditional sense. The internet and other technologies including iPod, iTunes, and TiVo have changed the former marketplace rules forever.
Chris Anderson, an editor and blogger has written an important book about the future of marketing. At the same time, he has crafted a book about today's business realities, and how technology has shaped them in ways unimaginable even a decade ago. The market will always have room for the bestsellers and the blockbuster hits, but there is now competition for companies in any industry who are dependent on the single top seller. That competition has arrived in the form of the niche product, creating consumer choices beyond imagination. Chris Anderson even has a name for this plethora of product choice. He calls it "the long tail".
At the head of this new marketing phenomenon, are the best selling products as traditionally understood. They are the household brand names in every product line you know. In the past, that head was almost the limit of true product choice. Space for products was limited and expensive. Only the heavy turnover items were kept in stock. Many products appealing to a limited group of people, were not available in the traditional marketplace. The internet and other technological advances have added new unlimited choices that appeal to those extremely narrow market segments.
Taken separately, these tiny groups of customers were not worth the price of shelf space in the past. There was no room for the misses; only the hits. Now, with the arrival of websites, and other electronic marketing venues, there is no limit to the number of tiny segments that can be reached. As a result, the niche marketing long tail forms an aggregate market, made up of those former and current misses, many times larger than the best seller formed head.
The modern world of today, and the even faster paced society of tomorrow will be built on access to product options, available electronically, from all around the world. No longer will marketing savvy business people be dependent upon creating a hit. Adding together an unlimited number of misses into tiny niche markets will be the order of the day.
The head of the marketplace animal will always be built upon hits and blockbusters. For Chris Anderson, in The Long Tail The Radical New Shape of Culture and Commerce (also available as an audio format CD), that will always remain the case, but what is important is the hit's importance will be dimished dramatically.
Where the writer believes the real action, and far more economic activity will take place, is with the many times more numerous misses and minor products. These small sellers, taken as a whole, make up the long tail phenomenon. Electronic media, satellites, and internet have made the niche market a truly viable option for businesses large and small. The unlimited product choice and availability at a person's fingertips will be a boon for the consumer as well.
Read The Long Tail The Radical New Shape of Culture and Commerce by Chris Anderson. Your business future is found somewhere in "long tail".
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