The Long Tail predicted the future that we live in now in 2009.
Because most of Chris Anderson's hypothesis turned out to be true, there were not a lot of new information in the book. However, it was helpful to understand the emergence of the long tail that has fragmented the media landscape. A more curated filtering system and micro opinion writers have contributed to this trend.

An extremely approachable, well researched & well presented work, presenting a fascinating view point of the economic effects we as a people are experiencing from the rapid progress realised in the context of the information age through the associated digital technology; designed, developed & distributed.

Nonostante i dati siano un po’ vecchiotti, gli spunti forniti su una lettura diversa del mercato e della vendita di beni e servizi, sono veramente interessanti e fonte di ispirazione.
Chris Anderson ha uno stile di scrittura accattivante, senza orpelli che gradisco particolarmente. Sarà anche che i temi che tratta sono di mio interesse. Resta il fatto che c’è modo e modo. Fondù: argomenti interessanti descritti in modo chiaro. Consigliato!

A few good snippets in this one but way too long and boring in general. The writing style doesn't help it at all as Chris comes off as a typical editor/writer/blogger (insert other roles that are expected to "write well" here) and uses language that is mostly hard to read. Why would you use a word that needs to be checked in a dictionary to understand its meaning if not for the purpose of sounding smart? For me, that's the opposite of writing well.

The book, and its main idea of the Long Tail, has seriously affected the way I see many industries. When the digital book world started really taking off, after Amazon jumped in, I found myself referring to it in discussions of the future of the publishing industry. The internet has allowed businesses to reach consumers (and for consumers to reach businesses) who fall out of the majority--who "live" in the long tail. An important book in helping understand the effect the internet has had on retail particularly.

Chris Anderson escribió en 2004 un fantástico artículo en Wired.com titulado The long tail. Sobre ese artículo construyó un blog, thelongtail.com, que luego convirtió en libro. Las premisas del autor son tres:
1.- Con inventarios digitales podemos alcanzar una oferta casi infinita.
2.- Cuando a los compradores se les da oferta infinita, su demanda se prolonga mucho más allá de los éxitos o bestsellers.
3.- La suma de todas las ventas de los productos menos demandados es un porcentaje muy importante de las ventas totales.

El autor cita numerosos ejemplos, como Google, Amazon, Netflix, Yahoo... y muchas empresas más (todas ellas digitales, claro).

El libro está muy bien argumentado y es claro y comprensible. Y da un giro muy grande a la concepción de los negocios de venta minorista. Absolutamente recomendable.

Es un libro que tuve que leer para una tarea y al final me sorprendió mucho. Si bien no soy un apasionado por la lectura matemática, física o economista; he conectado bastante con la visión de Chris Anderson y el desarrollo que genera para que entiendas a fondo los principios de Long Tail.

Me gustan las perspectivas y subtítulos desde donde lo abarca; sin embargo, llega un momento en el que se vuelve repetitivo y se siente un tanto cíclico todo el libro.

This book falls in the "I wanted to like it more" category. The Long Tail as a theory is pretty powerful and makes valid sense..but bringing it back to the same examples (Google and iTunes) became tiresome. I get it..they're groundbreaking (We also get your love of Indie/House music) but try to increase your purview to other industries. As I finished the final page I thought "Did I like this book" and the answer was "Meh".

Aged reasonably well! It fell flat on what it expects humans to do in the face of large amounts of unverifiable information (they will adapt!), although maybe it will win out. Well thought out argument for why I should always shop on the internet for specific things than try to find it locally. Influenced my thinking on mybinder.org and other open infrastructure pieces - the long tail of useful things people can do with your software is just as important as the big ticket popular things they do with it. Recommend reading to understand the internet and a dose of early web 2.0 optimism.

This is an amazing book by the 2005 Times top 100 and Editor of Wired magazine is 10 years old, however, it was a prophetic account of how the new business models of the information age are changing human society.
1- In the old model we were limited by geography in everything from local interests to products we consume, massive supply chains of the 20th century replaced that with mass production and national/global interests and products
2- supply chain models suffered a physical constraints of scarce shelf space, inventories, broadcast time, etc which meant a pre-filtering process had to be established to decide which products should occupy those limited spaces, hence, a strong consumption bias emerged for top products and top songs creating the 80-20 rule, i.e., 20% of hits dominated 80% of demand
3- Modern information age business models broke away from the constraints of physical atoms to the abundance of digital bits, e.g., amazon, iTunes changed this formula by making it very cheap to offer millions of products to consumers who in turn started moving away from the top hits down the curve to the long tail of niche offerings. the 80-20 rule of traditional manufactured goods has been replaced by a long tail of low volume products catering to every consumer needs
4- The web, YouTube and eBay went even further to democratize supply creating a market place where millions of suppliers meet millions of consumers over billions of offerings.
5- such long tail of products required a new mechanism of guidance and filtering (post-filtering) to enable sifting and finding what they need in the jungle of products along the long tail.

The audiobook has a treat interview with Chris Anderson at the end where he talks about his extraordinary career and future thoughts

Highly recommended to all business readers

Teve uma época da minha vida, lá pelo começo do Twitter, por 2008, em que o livro A Cauda Longa, de Chris Anderson era uma sensação. No livro, ele explicava que o mercado de massa, e a cultura de massa haviam transitado para o mercado e cultura de nicho. Ou seja, vender o mesmo produto para um monte de gente não fazia mais sentido. O certo era vender o produto certo pro público certo. A culpa seria da internet e dos agregadores, como o Spotify e a Netflix, que apresentavam uma cauda longa, ou seja, um enorme catálogo de produtos que iam desde velharias a novidade, do hit ao obscuro. Eu nunca tive a oportunidade de ler o livro de Anderson, mas ele era sensação dos legais da turminha. Anos depois me deparei com uma oferta na Amazon da adaptação em quadrinhos deste livro por menos de dez reais. Adquiri e me deparei com uma adaptação bem feita, curiosamente feita pelo roteirista Cullen Bunn, que trabalharia para a Marvel e DC Comics nos anos seguinte. Além do nome nos créditos, ele não recebe uma página oficial como o desenhista e Chris Anderson (para vocês verem como o roteirista é valorizado). Contudo, a produção nacional do quadrinho pela Elsevier, com letras amassadas dentro dos balões, sem respiro nenhum, dá um cansaço na leitura, além de ter uns errinhos de português e de termos, e isso puxa a nota da produção para baixo. Deve ter sido por isso que a HQ encalhou e estava nesse preço absurdo de barato. De toda forma, vale a compra sim, para entender a teoria de Anderson.

Such biz. books, where the author is laying out a pattern, idea or a concept, are interesting when those ideas are exemplified i.e. the cases with which the author's trying to prove their point. Those are the most interesting patches for me, though at times things just feel repetitive.