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

by Chris Anderson (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)

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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 (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 55,261 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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

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More About the Author

Chris Anderson
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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
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Customer Reviews

24 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
48 of 50 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... (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 93,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good concept but most the value in execution, 4 Sep 2009
By AK (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
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.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book , 5 July 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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Ultimate choice and the key to free marketing
The Long Tail is a book I recommend all my clients to read. When so many people are wasting countless millions on ineffective marketing the Long Tail is the doorway to a method... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Stefan Drew

3.0 out of 5 stars The Loong Tail
Not the most gripping business book I have ever read, however it does illustrate interesting information about the changing patterns of consumer behaviour (bricks to bytes... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Newbert

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 4 months ago by Sulkyblue

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 8 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 11 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 13 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 13 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 13 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 13 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 14 months ago by O. Cheng

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