“Long Tail” from the guy who coined the term

Posted on April 19, 2007
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Whether Chris Anderson coined the term “long tail” isn’t the point of this post. I don’t care if he did or didn’t and neither should you. But because of my stance that this long tail phenomenon is simply a waste of time, if focused on, for most ecommerce marketers, I get a fair number of folks pointing to Chris’ book “The Long Tail”. They argue that the numbers presented on Amazon’s book sales are proof that long tail is the future and that Internet marketers better be paying attention.

Hmmmn, Did I miss somthing after all?

I don’t think so – and neither does the book’s author.

Look, the long tail as Chris describes it applies only to businesses with a ton of products. By a ‘ton’ I mean a product inventory in the hundreds of thousands, not just the hundreds like most ecommerce retailers I know. Not even in the thousands like a few select Internet retailers I know. Hundreds of Thousands.

That’s a lot.

And Chris apparently agrees. Here’s what he said in a recent post on his blog: “The big money in the Long Tail is in aggregation, as shown by the likes of eBay or iTunes. For the individual producer who’s way down there in the weeds, the forces that created the Long Tail market in the first place–democratized access to market and powerful filters that can drive demand to niches–certainly help, but even doubling a small number still leaves a pretty small number.”

Thanks Chris!

Enough said?

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