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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
I'm a decade late, but I've finally read The Long Tail. The nice thing about having read this now is that it's clear just how true the vision of this book really is. From the entertainment media that Anderson analyzed to Kickstarter moving up the starting point of the long tail of physical goods from post-manufacture to pre-manufacture, we live in a world where niches are normal. This isn't to say that we've fully adapted to them or fully realized the opportunities, but being a long tail consumer is now mainstream.
Even though the ideas in this book are now common place, Anderson's book still provides a useful framework for thinking about the long tail. The first, and perhaps most important thing to remember is that the long tail is still the long tail. The still are hits. Even within niches there are hits and tails. However, what the long tail represents is moving from a world where access to content is cut off after the short head (e.g., because of limitations in physical shelf space) to where availability extends far beyond what use to be available.
Anderson models three factors as driving the shift to the long tail. The democratization of the tools of production allows many more people to create content. Talent is not limited to those who become popular, so some of this content will be quite good. Just as important, some of this content may be truly excellent but in a specialized area that doesn't have mainstream appeal. My personal favorite example is video blog style adaptations of classic literature -- something I love, but which would never get made if the only distribution channel were main stream media.
Because there is no so much content, aggregation and distribution mechanisms become vital to success. Aggregation of digital information takes the expected forms -- search engines both general and specialized -- but aggregation in the physical world also aids the long tail. E.g., centralizing goods in warehouses (or decentralizing through peer-to-peer selling) can give consumers more choice than just relying on what's available in local stores; a nation might have enough demand to make a product worth stocking where a city does not.
But so much content, is not useful if it cannot be easily found. Most of what is in the long tail is low quality, and much of it might be great but not what you are looking for. The long tail is only valuable if you can find what you want. Ranking and filtering provide this search functionality. Another important effect of ranking and filtering is to lead people down the tail. Most people don't start with niche tastes. These tastes develop over time as individuals build more expertise in that niche.
None of these ideas is particularly complex, but that is what gives them power. The long tail is interesting because it is, to some degree, inevitable in a world of dramatically increased availability.
One quibble I had with the book is Anderson's misinterpretation of Barry Schwartz's frame of satisficing and maximizing. Schwartz and Anderson likely do have fundamentally different views of the value of choice. Nonetheless, Anderson still misrepresents satisficing. He represents it as settling for the choices available. Schwartz's presentation of satisficing is more nuanced -- not, admittedly, because he thinks a flood of choice is good but because he acknowledges that it is inevitable. As Schwartz presents it, satisficing is not about settling but rather about being clear about what you want. If you're clear about what you want, you can change your mindset to be satisfied with once you've found options that fit your criteria even if you later learn of new options.
Overall though, this was worth the quick read.
Even though the ideas in this book are now common place, Anderson's book still provides a useful framework for thinking about the long tail. The first, and perhaps most important thing to remember is that the long tail is still the long tail. The still are hits. Even within niches there are hits and tails. However, what the long tail represents is moving from a world where access to content is cut off after the short head (e.g., because of limitations in physical shelf space) to where availability extends far beyond what use to be available.
Anderson models three factors as driving the shift to the long tail. The democratization of the tools of production allows many more people to create content. Talent is not limited to those who become popular, so some of this content will be quite good. Just as important, some of this content may be truly excellent but in a specialized area that doesn't have mainstream appeal. My personal favorite example is video blog style adaptations of classic literature -- something I love, but which would never get made if the only distribution channel were main stream media.
Because there is no so much content, aggregation and distribution mechanisms become vital to success. Aggregation of digital information takes the expected forms -- search engines both general and specialized -- but aggregation in the physical world also aids the long tail. E.g., centralizing goods in warehouses (or decentralizing through peer-to-peer selling) can give consumers more choice than just relying on what's available in local stores; a nation might have enough demand to make a product worth stocking where a city does not.
But so much content, is not useful if it cannot be easily found. Most of what is in the long tail is low quality, and much of it might be great but not what you are looking for. The long tail is only valuable if you can find what you want. Ranking and filtering provide this search functionality. Another important effect of ranking and filtering is to lead people down the tail. Most people don't start with niche tastes. These tastes develop over time as individuals build more expertise in that niche.
None of these ideas is particularly complex, but that is what gives them power. The long tail is interesting because it is, to some degree, inevitable in a world of dramatically increased availability.
One quibble I had with the book is Anderson's misinterpretation of Barry Schwartz's frame of satisficing and maximizing. Schwartz and Anderson likely do have fundamentally different views of the value of choice. Nonetheless, Anderson still misrepresents satisficing. He represents it as settling for the choices available. Schwartz's presentation of satisficing is more nuanced -- not, admittedly, because he thinks a flood of choice is good but because he acknowledges that it is inevitable. As Schwartz presents it, satisficing is not about settling but rather about being clear about what you want. If you're clear about what you want, you can change your mindset to be satisfied with once you've found options that fit your criteria even if you later learn of new options.
Overall though, this was worth the quick read.
It's the business major in me, but I love learning about market trends and how and why people buy what they buy. The premise of this book- that the internet is creating millions of niche markets and we will never run out of niches- is incredibly interesting. still pretty early into it, but I loved that it talked about wikipedia already.
Update: Now that I'm finished, I am slightly disappointed. Yes, the premise was interesting (the internet has created millions of niche markets, the business model of the future is how to harness that) but the execution was... slightly lacking (at least in my opinion). Perhaps it's because the book is slightly outdated- published in 2007 I believe- but I couldn't help but think the entire time about how different things really are now. I got the feeling through the whole book that the author was saying "look how great the internet is! It can do everything!" Well, yeah, it's the internet, of course it's amazing, but it hasn't caused the downfall of civilization as we know it. Maybe I'm too young for the book- maybe it's meant for people my professors' age, who spent most of their life without the internet. I don't know. Also, social media was jammed in the back in one of the last chapters, and I feel like that it a huge force in the internet today. More people pay attention to blogs and facebook and twitter than eBay or Amazon now... but that's the nature of technology. It's constantly changing.
Update: Now that I'm finished, I am slightly disappointed. Yes, the premise was interesting (the internet has created millions of niche markets, the business model of the future is how to harness that) but the execution was... slightly lacking (at least in my opinion). Perhaps it's because the book is slightly outdated- published in 2007 I believe- but I couldn't help but think the entire time about how different things really are now. I got the feeling through the whole book that the author was saying "look how great the internet is! It can do everything!" Well, yeah, it's the internet, of course it's amazing, but it hasn't caused the downfall of civilization as we know it. Maybe I'm too young for the book- maybe it's meant for people my professors' age, who spent most of their life without the internet. I don't know. Also, social media was jammed in the back in one of the last chapters, and I feel like that it a huge force in the internet today. More people pay attention to blogs and facebook and twitter than eBay or Amazon now... but that's the nature of technology. It's constantly changing.
A great book, rich with new ideas and examples. This is one of the few business books worth reading.
Great concepts that were definitely game changing at the time, but probably 100 pages too long.
Well written and researched but in the end it is a bit "so what?" Yes, we've more choice but are we going to at the mercy of the big aggregators like google and amazon?
A good read, but probably more suited to a reasonably long magazine article than a whole book. The point is laid out pretty simply in the first few chapters, and it seems like much of the rest of the book just illustrates various examples of the same phenomenon.
I'm sure five years ago this would have been more revolutionary to me but now it's more of an industry standard, the long tail. It was interesting to see how Anderson formulated the long tail, it's development as an economic trend for pop culture. It's also a good example of how quickly online technology is changing. At the publication YouTube was an infant and now it's exploded in terms of mainstream and "long tail" content. Also Facebook is not mentioned, only MySpace. Oh the times, they are a-changing.
I read this book when it came out. It's a great read and clearly Chris Anderson has friends at Google and NetFlix.
I took a guess at Reed Hastings email address (the CEO of NetFlix) and dropped him a note after reading the book and curious about a movie caught in the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2002. Four hours later, I got a note back from Reed.
I've retold the story so many times, such a smart play on Reed's part.
I took a guess at Reed Hastings email address (the CEO of NetFlix) and dropped him a note after reading the book and curious about a movie caught in the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2002. Four hours later, I got a note back from Reed.
I've retold the story so many times, such a smart play on Reed's part.
And then there's this - sometimes, 5 page columns in a tech magazine don't translate well into a 200 page book.