Customer Reviews

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand

5 star:		(3)
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3 star:		(1)
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Wired magazine packs some of the best technology writers and new economy experts in the world, and with this book Chris Andersen asserts his position as the leader of the pack. This book has the right mix of the essential ingredients of a good business book: enough rigor for business theory but not so much as to make it dry; enough anecdotes to bring the point home but not so much as to make it repetitive; enough opinions and wit to make the reader question but not so much as to make it biased and shallow.

Like all mainstream business books, this one does not resist the temptation to encapsulate all business and socio-cultural phenomena around one simple theory. However, Anderson maintains the humility to admit discovery than claim invention. Expect this concept to become as widespread and oft-quoted (if not more) in understanding the digital consumer economy, than Geoffrey Moore's Chasm was/is in understanding the evolution of hi-tech products.

For me, this is another one of the books that points out the bleeding obvious. I mean that more in the sense that it is something I know but really haven't taken the time to understand or fully appreciate. This book has succeeded in making me think much deeper about the power of scale, especially when it come to the Internet.

In a world obsessed with the next big hit or the single shining light this book demonstrates that much success lies in satisfying the diversity of choice. Too often popular culture seduces into a popularity contest where there is only room for first place. Too often we fail to celebrate the diversity of interests that is humanity and fail to take business advantage of this.

The ability to reach smaller audiences has now been simplified with technology and the Internet. Now it is possible to services just about every market as quickly and easily as any traditional business model. This book opened my eyes up to the possibilities that I have been largely ignoring and has infused a desire to explore such opportunities with more rigour and discipline.

If you are looking to understand the business opportunity technology like the Internet can provide a business. If you are looking to understand how to succeed even within a restricted audience, then this book is something you should read. In reality, if you are in business then this is certainly a book that you should read as it may just change your idea of where you can be successful. I know it has for me.

The Long Tail addresses the fact that the internet enables retailers to address many different market niches, geographic regions, preferences for shopping and purchasing, etc. It also quantifies the value of the products/markets appealing to the less-than-blockbuster niches which is compelling. The take-away for small and medium businesses is that you needn't have the next Twitter, Facebook, or Power Ranger with the Kung Fu grip to have a very successful presence online. In fact, appealing to markets that are not served well by the Amazon's of the world can payoff in spades as long as you focus on satisfying their needs with laser-like focus. This book is a good read for small and medium business owners and managers since they are more likely to satisfy more narrow markets and niches. [...]

As an author who has just entered the world of Print on Demand (see Virtually Maria (Virtual Trilogy)and A Matter of Time) I found Chris Anderson's excellent book a great guide to the theory and practice of the rapidly expanding virtual marketplace.

In particular, I found his theories on the growth of niche markets and specialist sales on the internet very useful when planning my own online campaigns and creating a "web presence". His style is extremely readable and the book is well laid out and (thankfully for a former computer Luddite like myself) virtually jargon free.

If you want to know the theories behind what is happening at the cutting edge of the worldwide markets in cyberspace today - be it to sell your own wares or to impress your colleagues over coffee, I would strongly recommend this book.

The internet has changed the way consumers consume. In his book "The Long Tail", Chris Anderson explains how the internet has created a unique culture of endless choice, and unlimited demand. This has created a "Long Tail", whereby it is no longer economically viable for the big conglomerates to chase the mega-hits (Top 10 music, best selling books, this seasons must-have product), as the bulk of sales has shifted to items that may only sell one unit a month. It is the sum of all these sales that for the first time in history has surpassed the high volume items and created a whole new market for niche products.
Chris thoroughly examines the long tail phenomenon with detailed examples across multiple industries and niches. Chris has a vey easy to read style, and goes into great detail to support his hypothesis, which in the end I concluded was not conjecture, but actual fact.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and I would highly recommend it to anybody who likes to remain on the cutting edge or technology and trends.

Leigh Burke
Author of Niche Internet Marketing

I was surprised to see that there are no customer reviews for this book. I guess this, in a nutshell, sums up the long tail. In this brilliant work, Chris Anderson, says that the internet has changed many things but the most important one is the fact that it has created a long tail of niche products that by themselves mean very little but when one aggregates their deman, they add up to a lot. This website is a prime example of that long tail where bestsellers and POD books rub shoulders. This book has been written in a light, casual, entertaining style, but still manages to convey some serious information. Great idea and well written.