The Long Tail 2

The ways of describing The Long Tail:

• sales over inventory graph
• economies of abundance to economies of infinite choice
• hits to niches
• head to tail

What's in The Tail?

• future hits, past hits, never to be hits
• never to be hits includes bad stuff and stuff good only for a few
• if good for only one person, isn't it good?

Producer advantages of The Long Tail

• access to market: if your distributor has infinite warehouse shelf space you can get a place (e.g., Amazon self-publishing)
• low-cost marketing: in the form recommendations whether by filters or word-of-mouth (blogs, viral emails)

On the effect of The Long Tail on the curve: shifting it right or moving it up. He thinks it will vary by industry. The main constraints are the scarcity of disposal income and time. More of a product will be consumer if he matches their taste, doesn't have rivalies for their time (can be consumer simultaneously while doing other things), and doesn't cost more to use more. He believe all-you-can-eat pricing schemes will do better in the Long Tail. But isn't that true of most products that you find enjoyable?