or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
24 used & new from £2.99
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand (Paperback)

by Chris Anderson (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.48 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £2.51 (28%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 10? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
14 new from £4.86 10 used from £2.99
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Paperback £8.99 £6.24 23 used & new from £3.58
Audio Download (Unabridged) £16.63 £11.69

Frequently Bought Together

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand + Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business + Wikinomics
Price For All Three: £24.14

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business

Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business

by Chris Anderson
3.8 out of 5 stars (10)  £12.29
Wikinomics

Wikinomics

by Don Tapscott
3.6 out of 5 stars (28)  £5.37
We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production

We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production

by Charles Leadbeater
3.9 out of 5 stars (8)  £6.48
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few

by James Surowiecki
4.0 out of 5 stars (20)  £5.97
What Would Google Do?

What Would Google Do?

by Jeff Jarvis
4.5 out of 5 stars (6)  £10.42
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • 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 (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 17,550 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #21 in  Books > Business, Finance & Law > Sales & Marketing > Brands & Corporate Identity

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

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
See all Product Description

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(6)
(4)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
See all 20 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand
75% buy the item featured on this page:
The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand 4.1 out of 5 stars (22)
£6.48
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
11% buy
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference 4.2 out of 5 stars (73)
£4.97
Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business
5% buy
Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business 3.8 out of 5 stars (10)
£12.29
We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production
5% buy
We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production 3.9 out of 5 stars (8)
£6.48
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (9)
4 star:
 (7)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars When Variety Costs Little More, People Enjoy Having More of It, 8 Oct 2007
By Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)      
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.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book , 5 Jul 2007
I started reading The Long Tail straight after reading "Why The World Is Full of Useless Things" by Steve McKevitt which was published last year. These are two great books to read together offering a much broader analysis than they do on their own.

I think we've got it in ourselves to move into a more ethical way of being - and the potentially limitless choice of the internet might paradoxically bring that about, as per Long Tail, we stop being passive consumers of mass produced crap, we develop ever more niched niches for our little individual selves to consume and create from, power really does pass back to consumers (sort of) etc. I urge you to read both.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A 'Tipping Point' Type of Book, 7 Jun 2007
By Michael Beale (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This book helped me realise how the web (an enabler for huge choice at low cost) could provide individuals with new markets and real opportunities. Inspirational.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and entertaining
This book is a mixture of economics, psychology, history, technology and marketing and they are all used brilliantly to clearly explain and extend the idea. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Sulkyblue

4.0 out of 5 stars Good concept but most the value in execution
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... Read more
Published 2 months ago by AK

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting Read
I found this an interesting read. Anderson makes a good point with great erudition. The basic premise is that the far end of a demand curve can generate large volumes of income... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. I. D. Shannon

3.0 out of 5 stars great concept
Now an accepted concept as illustrated beautifully by bookseller such as abebooks and bookdepository. Read more
Published 7 months ago by karen bennett

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, researched and thorough
I found this book an interesting read that's made me approach the day-to-day considerations of business and opportunity from a new angle. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Hypernik

3.0 out of 5 stars the long tail of books on the impact of the Web ?
Good to great - after 150 pages you get it - I would love to hear chris anderson speak on the subject - data is intresting , shame more companies would not share their... Read more
Published 9 months ago by N. O. Donnell

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple concept yet important consequences
This is an extremely simple yet important book about the effect of digital goods and their availability via the internet on the economics of product variety. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Norberto Amaral

4.0 out of 5 stars insightful
This book is excellent to understand how you can use the internet for marketing a wide variety of products. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Elis

2.0 out of 5 stars Repetitive
Sometimes a book may have excellent concept and ideas, but fails on execution. In my opinion, The Long tail is one of them; when the same theory is being presented in a book... Read more
Published 10 months ago by O. Cheng

5.0 out of 5 stars A winning concept
Chris Andreson has written a down-to-earth, incisive and savvy page-turner to tell the story of how the almost unlimited choice brought about new internet-driven technologies has... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Oscar Del Santo

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject










i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.