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Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, tells how he got the idea for his book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.

He was talking to the CEO of Ecast. This company made a digital jukebox with a hard drive and a high-speed Internet connection so people can download individual songs from tens of thousands of online albums.

The CEO asked him to estimate what percentage of albums had at least one song downloaded every financial quarter, or every three months. Anderson guessed 20%. Just the “top 100” albums right? Only the most popular songs would be downloaded at least once every three months.

The correct answer was 98%!

Songs were downloaded from virtually all of the tens of thousands of albums available through Ecast at least once every three months.

Anderson confirmed these results with Netflix, Amazon.com and Apple’s iTunes. Approximately 90% of their individual movies, books, and songs were bought by someone at least once every three months.

In other words, people were no longer satisfied to see only the “blockbusters,” read only the “best-sellers,” and listen only to the “top 40.”

Abundant Choices Everywhere

Next, Anderson analyzed a month of downloaded songs from Rhapsody, an online music store. He defined “popularity” as the number of downloads. Songs that were downloaded many times must be more popular than songs that were downloaded fewer times. The resulting graph looked like this:

Ranked by popularity, downloads for the most popular songs started out high and dropped substantially, but never reached zero. Even the #100,000th song had thousands of downloads. Even the #400,000th song had downloads!

In other words, even the least popular songs were still being downloaded by someone. “No store could ever carry this much music,” Anderson writes.

Would you ever find the least popular songs in a record store? And how many traditional record stores sell individual songs? You have to buy an entire album just to get the few songs you really like.

Unless you have an iPod and a subscription to iTunes or Rhapsody. Then you’ll have access to many, many more songs than you could ever buy in a record store. Even a large one! And in a format no record store sells. You’re experiencing the Long Tail of music.

When you buy an obscure used book on Amazon.com, you’re experiencing the Long Tail of books. Would you have found that book at your local book store? What if you live 100 miles from the nearest large book store?

And when you watch an amateur comedy skit on YouTube, you’re experiencing the Long Tail of entertainment. Would CBS ever broadcast a six-minute amateur comedy skit? Would you ever see that obscure documentary you found on Netflix in a movie theater?

The Long Tail is about abundance. Abundant music, abundant books, and abundant entertainment. Abundant choices everywhere you look. Whatever you want, it’s probably out there somewhere. You just have to find it.

It hasn’t always been that way, has it?

Living a Life of Scarcity

Until the Internet and broadband access came along, most of us experienced an economy of scarcity. Especially if we lived far from a large metropolitan area.

Suppose you lived in a suburb of a small city 30 years ago. Suppose when you went shopping for jam, you only found strawberry jam, grape jam, and apple butter. That’s it.

Even if other types of jam were available, you wouldn’t know it, would you? Your small general grocery store had to sell everything, so they only had space for the most popular jams.

When you went shopping for music, you could only buy the “top 40” hits. The “top 100” albums. Your local music store couldn’t possibly carry every recording that had ever been made. Shelf space is expensive, so they only carried the music most people would buy.

But that was okay with you. The music they carried was the only music you knew, because that’s the only music your local radio station played. They played very popular music to generate a large audience for their advertisers.

You had a small book store close by, but a small book store couldn’t carry every book that has ever been published. So they only carried the “best sellers.” The books that most people would buy. Leasing and running a physical store is very expensive!

In other words, you lived a life of scarcity. Very few products, very few choices.

Technology to the Rescue!

Technology has changed all of that.

Sure, strawberry jam, grape jam, and apple butter are probably still the top-selling jams. But suppose you love lemon and discovered that lemon curd jam was available on Amazon.com.

“Jam on Amazon.com?” I hear you say. “I thought Amazon only sold books.”

Yes, Amazon revolutionized the used book industry in the mid-1990s. But in 1999, they went a step further and offered to advertise other companies’ products on their website. And not just books. Everything from furniture to sporting goods to jam.

Amazon grabbed the bull by The Long Tail so they could help you find the most obscure products in the world. Giving you many, many, many more products and many, many, many more choices.

It doesn’t even matter where you live anymore.

And when faced with more choices, many people investigate new music, new foods, and new entertainment.

And when they do, the world of limited “hits” and “best-sellers” descends into the Long Tail of “everything else.” Because most songs are not hits, most movies are not blockbusters, and most books are not best-sellers.

But millions of people think they might still be worth listening to, watching, and reading. That’s the Long Tail in action.

A world of abundant choices. That’s Life in the Long Tail.

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. Chris Anderson. 2006. NY: Hyperion. http://www.TheLongTail.com

Copyright 2010, Ruth M. Shipley

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