Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” Arrives

Chris Anderson, a business journalist who once wrote for The Economist and now edits Wired has finally released his much anticipated book “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” (Hyperion). In it Anderson argues that we are witnessing the decline of the mega-hit. The “emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today’s mass market,” he writes. “If the twentieth-century entertainment industry was about hits, the twenty-first will be equally about niches.”

"The forces behind the long tail are largely technological: cheap computer hardware, which reduces the cost of making and storing information products; ubiquitous broadband, which cuts the cost of distribution; and elaborate “filters,” such as search engines, blogs, and online reviews, which help to match supply and demand," writes John Cassidy in his New Yorker book review.

“Think of each of these three forces as representing a new set of opportunities in the emerging Long Tail marketplace,” Anderson suggests. “The democratized tools of production are leading to a huge increase in the number of producers. Hyper efficient digital economies are leading to new markets and marketplaces. And finally, the ability to tap the distributed intelligence of millions of consumers to match people with the stuff that suits them best is leading to the rise of all sorts of new recommendation and marketing methods, essentially serving as the new taste makers.”

This is a must read for anyone who is a part of the new music industry.

Sources: The New Yorker, The Long Tail Blog, The original Long Tail Wired article.