IN RESPONSE TO: THE LONG TAIL by CHRIS ANDERSON
There are a few things that are really relevant in this article to both what I'm learning how to do professionally and what my lifestyle has been like for the past 21 years. Anderson prefaces things by showing the significance of the online culture, citing the example of the book battle between Joe Simpson's Touching the Void and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. What had happened, long story short, was that Simpson's book sales skyrocketed when Krakauer released a book of similar nature. This is credited to Amazon.com and like-minded businesses/websites that provide things like recommendations for their customers. Anderson notes, importantly, that at this point in time, Touching the Void, Simpson's book, outsells Into Thin Air by Krakauer two to one.
He makes a good point. It's one of the rules he later brings up about making things easier for consumers (others include "#1 Make EVERYTHING available and #2 Cut the price in half, and now lower it.)
He also addresses the topic of living in a new world of abundance with iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon and more. "The biggest money is in the smallest sales," Kevin Laws says, and he's totally right. This concept is referred to as the 'long tail concept.' It's a principle that most sites like overstock.com and alice.com depend and operate on. I have experience and knowledge about marketing through school and current things I'm involved with, so this is something I can relate to.
According to the Boston Marketing Matrix, each company's market growth and market share depends on four different aspects, the stars (high share, high growth,) question marks (low share, high growth,) cash cows (high share, low growth,) and the dogs (low share, low growth.)
The matrix dictates that most money comes from the things that have low growth- e.g., those people that bought Simpson's book over time rather than the surge of popularity that came with the release of Krakauer's book, which could be equated to something like a question mark or a star.
I agree with Anderson in that sense. I agree with the 'long tail' concept as well. The Internet provides people with the abundance they need, as mentioned before, and does it conveniently over a span of time, which provides (much needed in this economy,) longevity for the businesses that operate online.
