Understanding the long tail, a good read

The book conceptualizes the long tail and provides example of the long tail as a strategy. Interesting read, specially the first half. It is recommended for everyone working in a commercial function or anyone interested to learn about the paradigm shift of digital.

I was recommended this book by many peers to understand the possibilities of the internet. I was fascinated that this book was written almost 15 years back when the internet was gaining popularity. Many concepts in the book are very relevant even today. The book shares how the internet has provided unlimited options to consumers which eventually led to disruptions in many industries like retail, Music, Movies etc. The concept of consumers finding their own niche interests via the internet which led to selling of more of less popular products. It is a good book to understand consumer preferences in the digital era and how small businesses can take advantage of the long tail by concentrating on a particular niche

Rereading, 20 years after it was published puts in focus what was right, what was missed, what was flavor of the decade (2000) and what was foreshadowed.

Right : Niches. From fandom to craft beers. Quintessential long tail.

Missed : the polarization of individual beliefs, etc. The echo chambers were dismissed as an almost impossibility.

Foreshadowed: the recuperation of peers, crowdsourcing by the businesses aka influencers.

Overall I think it was a defining text of its time before the monopolies of social medias, Google and Amazon took over and used it for themselves.

It explains everything that we are seeing now. Online Businesses focusing on the long tail have an advantage over their traditional counterparts. Niches are winning and the narrative is with the user instead of the business owners.

Here's another book that was based on a Wired magazine article (see NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity).

A pretty good write-up of the long tail phenomenon in business.

The gist of it is, as the cost of maintaining an inventory of some commodity declines, the profitability of niche markets increases. And especially when your commodity is bits and bytes, the cost has declined dramatically, creating all kinds of business opportunities.

Worth reading, but it's a bit dated. Mentions MySpace and Sun. There's a bare mention of 3D printing.

Terrific explanation of the long tail in marketing. Explained why there will always be room for good self-published authors.

I now finally understand why this book is the classic it is. Took me long enough to find out, but I did get around to it. I had to dodge around a rather long tail to get at it. A har har.

It is phenomenally prescient as well, and unpacks the case beautifully and elegantly.

The book is split, however. The first hundred pages are a phenomenal introduction of the general idea. and sells the thesis hook, line, and sinker. The remainder meanders a bit with overbogged details, but they don't rob the book of the power of the first third. Read just that, if you haven't the time, but you want to see what it's about, so you can quote it in business meetings to show off how much you think you know. That can be my Blinkist-ish recommendation.

Undeva la mijlocul cartii trageam de mine sa o termin cat mai repede. Ceva se intampla acolo. Poate prea multe exemple din industria de entertainment, muzica si film, se simte o usoara repetitie pe alocuri.

"Coada lunga" este genul de carte care prezinta o idee principala, o parte teoretica, multe studii de caz si cateva recomandari despre cum sa actionezi in contextul prezentat. Cam mult despre o idee relativ simpla.

Ca este o coada lunga sau ca pur si simplu internetul este un cu totul alt animal si ca raportul lui Pareto de 80/20 nu se aplica atunci cand o tehnologie noua schimba radical piata, permitand costuri foarte mici pentru prezentarea produselor, acoperirea unei suprafete tehnic nelimitate si alimentata de nenumarate recenzii, comparatia aceasta intre analogic si online (dincolo de digital) mi se pare in sine mai putin importanta.

Dat fiind ca este o carte publicata in 2006 suna pe alocuri putin arhaic. Autorul vorbeste,printre altele, despre comertul cu dvd-uri, un netflix inca in fasa, ebay, inceputurile amazon si google, iar facebook, instagram, aplicatiile mobile abia se conturau la orizont, filtrele de cautare sunt niste geniale, iar comertul online insuma abia 10% din piata.

Dincolo de notiunile teoretice puteti considera studiile de caz drept niste lectii de istorie din evolutia internetului si apreciez efortul autorului. Putini isi imaginau ce avant va avea internetul si cat de radical se va schimba tot, iar ceea ce parea revolutionar in 2006 acum este acceptat ca normal si integrat seamless in vietile noastre.

This was basically required reading as an SEO but oh my god it was so boring. The same examples were harped on over and over and over again and the points were explained and re-explained and re-re-explained to death. The author took digital trends and tried to place them over physical economies and failed to explain how that would work.

This book could have easily been a third as long. It raised some interesting points, yes, but they were lost in the sludge.

I disliked this book for two reasons: I do not believe it represents any original ideas and it is, like most business books, horribly verbose. Yawn-zilla. Yawn-a-saurus rex. Avoid.

I take issue with the idea that this book even represents a body of original ideas. The long tail concept is very cute, but after reading it, I can't stop thinking about the story of Sears-Roebuck which Anderson writes about. The notion of giving people access to a plethora of products that were heretofore unobtainable has been done before, we're told. The conclusion I drew was that Amazon and other businesses like it simply do the same thing for the world today that Sears-Roebuck did back then, so that there's still nothing new under the sun. Anderson works backward, arguing that Sears-Roebuck represented an earlier, similar long tail phenomenon. The economics of "abundance" still seems to me to fall into the realm of orthodox economics of a kind Adam Smith would have well-understood: In competitive markets, price approaches marginal cost. Since bits are so cheap that we can take their cost to be negligible, we can provide more and more varied kinds of bits. Instead, Anderson seems to start by assuming this is something totally new and has to develop an elaborate mythology around it so that he'll have something to write about for 300 pages. Like the Black Swan, this book could have been 50 pages and offered as an ebook, satisfying Anderson's own long-tail definition by not fitting the typical pattern of other boring business books.

[written in 2006]

I’m sitting here at my computer in Homer, writing this review in email, fixing to send it off to Barbara in Scottsdale, for publication in either the eNews or the Poisoned Pen newsletter, to be read by subscribers all over the nation and the world.  And suddenly I realize, Barbara is obeying one of the dictums of the Long Tail -- she’s letting the customers do the work.  I’m in the middle of a marketing revolution of which I could only see some parts some of the time. 

Now that I can see them all and Anderson has explained the cause and effect of them so well, it seems so simple and so obvious.  Down with bestseller thinking!  Trust the market to do your job!  Understand the power of the free!  Order this book now, especially if you are connected in any way to retail sales.  Which, let’s face it, we all are.  I particularly love the Kitchen Aide and the Lego stories.

This book was one of those books that took !e a while to finish do to it just really being a boring read. Now, if you can look past that is shows how the long tail effects is today and how it's only going grow our business in the future ad how companies like Amazon is taking full advantage of the long tail right now.