- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Random House Business Books (3 May 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1844138518
- ISBN-13: 978-1844138517
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 148,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Long Tail
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
What happens when there is almost unlimited choice? When everything becomes available to everyone? And when the combined value of the millions of items that only sell in small quantities equals or even exceeds the value of a handful of best-sellers? In this ground-breaking book, Chris Anderson shows that the future of business does not lie in hits - the high-volume end of a traditional demand curve - but in what used to be regarded as misses - the endlessly long tail of that same curve. As our world is transformed by the Internet and the near infinite choice it offers consumers, so traditional business models are being overturned and new truths revealed about what consumers want and how they want to get it. Chris Anderson first explored the Long Tail in an article in Wired magazine that has become one of the most influential business essays of our time. Now, in this eagerly anticipated book, he takes a closer look at the new economics of the Internet age, showing where business is going and exploring the huge opportunities that exist: for new producers, new e-tailers, and new tastemakers.He demonstrates how long tail economics apply to industries ranging from the toy business to advertising to kitchen appliances. He sets down the rules for operating in a long tail economy. And he provides a glimpse of a future that's already here.
From the Publisher
The new economics of culture and commerce
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
When Variety Costs Little More, People Enjoy Having More of It,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand (Paperback)
When you want to eat ice cream outside your home, do you go to a store that offers only chocolate and vanilla . . . or do you go where there are many more choices? Most people will do the latter. That's the basic point of this book. If you're satisfied with knowing that point, you don't need to read the book. Instead, you could settle for Mr. Anderson's article in the October 2004 issue of Wired.
But if you are like the growing legions of people who enjoy knowing more about the quirks of micro-economics (such as those who were intrigued by The Tipping Point, Freakonomics and Fooled by Randomness), The Long Tail will provide much entertainment. Let me explain what a long tail is. If you plot the popularity of various products (say, books on Amazon) with the most popular products at the left, the left part of the curve will be very vertical (the head) and there will be a long list of items to the right that will have relatively few sales (the tail). Mr. Anderson's point is that as it becomes economically viable to produce and distribute more low-volume products (such as print-on-demand books and e-books), there will be more items available to purchase at any outlet . . . and the length the tail to the right will grow. As more outlets can afford to make these items available, the thickness of the tail will also grow. A physical store will only distribute a small percentage of the items, stopping where the offering no longer adds to its targeted rate of profits. An on-line store will have far more items (such as Amazon), appeal to more customers and sell lots of its volume in relatively unpopular items. The author estimates that 25% of Amazon's book sales volume, for instance, comes from outside the 100,000 top selling books. Here's where Mr. Anderson begins to lose his way: He tries to describe the sociological implications. He sees, for example, a loss of common cultural items of the sort that talking about the Beatles appearing on Ed Sullivan once provided. He imagines a world in which everyone drifts off into various different niches and the size of the head becomes less vertical. While that may be true, it doesn't correctly forecast the amount of commonality in the culture. The sales of any given item over time may well be in both the head and the tail. Or an item could be a sleeper and always be in the tail, but if enough people buy it, the item will become part of the common culture. In addition, some elements of common culture don't appear in sales curves. I'm sure that yesterday's arrests in the alleged plot to bomb a number of airplanes have already become part of the common culture. I won't go on to point out his other errors. I'm sure you'll notice them for yourself. The other disappointment was that he doesn't do a very good job of describing strategy choices for product producers. It seems to me that the long tail is simply another argument in favor of intense individual product and service customization of the sort that Dell has been giving us for years in computers and related equipment. My grade of 3 stars for the book is 5 stars for long-tail trivia and 1 star for sociological and producer analysis. If you haven't read any of the following books, The Tipping Point, Freakonomics and Fooled by Randomness, I recommend that you read those long before you get around this one. They are much better books about micro-economic implications.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good concept but most the value in execution,
By
This review is from: The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand (Paperback)
The Long Tail proposes an alternative economics model for a world of abundance, as opposed to scarcity focused economics, which have been the focus for the field more or less since inception. The idea is reasonably sound and the author does a good work of explaining it and supporting it with relevant examples.
One thing I did enjoy is that the author looked at non-internet based examples as well, broadening the appeal. However the work suffers from several flaws, as well. Several examples of lacking numeracy spoil some of the enjoyment (as the author is a physicist by training, these are hardly excusable). On top of that, the message, even supported b relevant examples could be squeezed into less than 40% of the book's length - I found the rest to be unnecessary repetition. If you expect an interesting discussion about web economics, you'll be served well, if you are looking for prescriptive advice on how to really take advantage of the phenomenon, there s none. I do not find tht a problem per se but some readers might. The reason why I give it 4 stars and not 3, is that the book demonstrates very well that the author believes his own concept - countless examples of trying to make the work more 'findable', or 'linkable' are strewn throughout - I imagine hoping to take advantage of Amazon's text crawling, opefully linking it to very other popular works, which are quoted inside, even if there is no real content need to reference to them. Looking for these was relatively amusing, which eased the frustration of endless repetition of the basic message.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A mixed bag,
By Alan Lenton (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand (Paperback)
I finished this book sometime ago, but had to ponder for a while before writing about it. My dilemma revolves around two points. First, it is an interesting, well written, read. Second, the evidence presented is entirely anecdotal.
Anderson's thesis is very simple. The rise of businesses like Amazon and eBay, coupled with the interpersonal communication facilities afforded by the Internet, has effectively created unlimited demand. He argues that he has identified a business opportunity to make a profit in niche areas that were not previously profitable. The explanation given is fairly simple. The development of the Internet means that more people have access to minority items, and the development of filtering technology, especially collaborative filtering technology, means that people can identify material they are interested in more easily. The concept is seductive and well argued. Unfortunately, more recent research (the book was published several years ago) is not really supporting the idea. Not only that, but I have been unable to find any examples of successful businesses just based on the long tail model. As the Western world slides into a recession of the next year or so, it will soon become clear whether this is yet another idea from the digeratii which is based on the assumption that the good times will last for ever, or contains some real meat. Five stars for entertainment value. One star for lack of research!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
