Long Tail : Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson

Author:Chris Anderson [Anderson, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-07-06T13:22:38+00:00

9

THE SHORT HEAD

THE WORLD THE SHELF CREATED, FOR BETTER OR WORSE Hits, like it or not, are here to stay. So are retail stores with limited shelf space and broadcast networks, lowest-common-denominator fare and all. For all the growth in e-commerce, online shopping is still less than 10 percent of American retail, having just passed catalog shopping. Even the biggest boosters of online shopping don’t expect that they’ll pass a quarter of consumer spending for decades.

It’s not just the instant-gratification convenience and tactile advantages of bricks and mortar. We’re also a gregarious species, and sometimes we like to do things together with other people. There’s comfort in numbers, and shared experiences bring us closer.

That’s why the unequal shape of powerlaws is unavoidable. Long Tail markets tend to be a bit flatter than traditional markets, but they still have their share of blockbusters. For each way that we differ from one another, there are more ways that we’re alike. This is not only inevitable, but it’s actually essential in helping kickstart recommendations and other filters that make the rest of the online market work.

In this chapter we’ll return to the left side of the powerlaw, the land of the A list. We’ll look at both the virtues of shelves and their costs, and likewise for broadcast technologies and Hollywood’s hit-making machine. Let’s start with their advantages.

Hits may not dominate society and commerce as much as they did over the past century, but they still have unmatched impact. And part of that is their ability to serve as a source of common culture around which more narrowly targeted markets can form.

Successful Long Tail aggregators need to have both hits and niches. They need to span the full range of variety, from the broadest appeal to the narrowest, to be able to make the connections that can illuminate a path down the Long Tail that makes sense for everyone.

Consumers want one-stop shopping. They want to have some confidence that what they’re looking for is in one specific place. Stores that give consumers the most confidence that everything they want is there are going to be the ones that succeed. This notion of ultimate selection, of knowing that the filters are selecting the best from a choice of everything (or at least everything in that domain) is why good Long Tail aggregators are so compelling.

If you just have the products at the Head, you find that very quickly your customers want more and you can’t offer it. If you just have the products at the Tail, you find that customers have no idea where to start. They’re unable to get traction in the marketplace because everything you’re offering is unfamiliar to them. The importance of offering the stuff at both the Head and the Tail is that you can start in the world that customers already know: familiar products that tap into and define a space.

A good example of why this is so necessary is the story of MP3.com, one of the early online music services.

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