Long Tail Theory - Anderson

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Long Tail Theory - Anderson

In his 2006 book: "Investing in the Long Tail: Why the future of Business is Selling Less of More", Chris Anderson - Editor of Wired Magazine - presents his Long Tail Theory on demand curves:
1. The long tail of demand curves is getting longer, because when goods don't have to be displayed on store shelves, physical and cost contraints on selection disappear.
2. The long tail of distribution curves is also geting fatter, because customers are going to buy more niche products instead of blockbuster products or bestsellers.
After doing some research, Professor Anita Elbertse concludes that only the first idea of Anderson is valid. Blockbusters, topsellers and hits are increasingly where the biggest profits are made. According to her, "it is therefore highly disputable that much money can be made in the tail" (in HBR July-August 2008, p 88-96).

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		0 Vinaytosh Mishra, India
	Internet Marketing The advertisisng tools like ADWords, Email marketing and VoIP and IPTV will change the digital media. It will become easier to target niches with these less costly technologies.

		0 Carlos, Spain
	Long Tail I totally agree with C. Anderson. As an advisor to the first IPTV hispanic platform I am already seeing the effect of change regarding long tail content. People are changing their habits in relation to viewing. There is more streaming of short videos than large ones. Take a look at the Nielsen figures for HULU, average usage per registered user is 136 minutes per month. In that time you can scarcely fit one movie length.

		0 Rajan Mani, India
	Long Tail Theory Marketers would also look to grab available (or even not readily available) niches or try to create such nichea as part of their value offering in increasingly crowded and fragmented markets. We can see this happening even in economies recently (say two decades) opened to market forces like India.