Long Tail Strikes Again

Chris Anderson’s second half of The Long Tail  shows that Long Tail markets are not without “blockbusters” since recommendations by other users lead to niche hits. I find this notion funny since the long tail starts out as the ability to out-do the hits with smaller individual non-hit product sales. This Long Tail concept has also made numerous software companies rich. Baynote who’s motto is “Community Content Guidance” has peaked interest of many investors. The power of recommendation as a social and marketing service has great financial implications.    

I thought the notion of Mp3 technology as a Long Tail failure was an interesting one. Its market was cut off when iTunes started making revolutionary contracts with large music companies to start offering the plethora of offerings the long tail is associated with. Mp3’s were popular but could not produce the quantity needed to reach Long Tail stature.  

Anderson reiterates both the positive and negatives of physical stores. Having worked in retail for several years while in school, I definitely agree with Anderson that there is an amazing science to displayed items in physical stores. While at Best Buy’s computer department we had late-night double shifts where corporate would give us perfectly architectured designs outlining each isle display. They had sales data for each month of different layouts and realized we needed to change our current displays to maximize sales for our higher ticket items.  

The categorizing dilemma of physical stores mentioned by Anderson is a huge obstacle. I think we all are so accustomed to power online searches, that when given a Big Box store like Wal-mart we get frustrated when we can’t find towels in the place we’d assumed we should find them. Online has the capability to offer endless categories, not just one offering. Online stores capitalize on placing the same product simultaneously in multiple categories while also utilizing “tags” for products searches in every possible reiteration. When time is of the essence, customers will easily agree to shipping charges if they don’t have to brave traffic and the lines of physical stores. 

The Long Tail represents the plethora of choices now available for any product or service one can imagine. “We are in the midst of the biggest explosion of variety in history. You can see it all around you…” (p. 168). But abundance can overwhelm and confuse some consumers.

The Long Tail has greatly affected the market for books. Paula Berinstein’s blog, the Writing Show has a great article highlighting the ways.  Those titles that don’t fortuitous end up on Oprah’s Book Club list are not shunned indefinitely. Real markets are available now in a digital age. 

Choices will continue to propel Long Tail markets. It will be interesting to see how future technologies will make these choices less overwhelming to consumers.