
Declaring the ‘Long Tail’ Dead - robg
http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2009/05/anderson-wired-business
======
sethg
I have this mental filter that I apply to all technohype. When I read someone
saying "Invention X is going to _change the way we do business forever!_ " it
registers in my mind as "Invention X has some interesting consequences that
will affect a number of business processes." And then I can read the whole
article/book/blog through that filter and often feel like the author is making
valid points.

Then someone else comes along and says "OMG did you see this guy claiming that
Invention X will _change the way we do business forever?_ What a fool!" and my
first reaction is "oh, no, he didn't say _that_..."

~~~
derefr
It may just be because I have the same mental filter installed, but I see
those two statements as equivalent. If something affects business processes,
isn't that another way of saying that it changes, in some small way, the way
we do business? (The "forever" is just fluff—every change is forever until the
next change, in the opposite direction, that's _also_ "forever.")

------
BerislavLopac
The article seems like nothing more but ramblings of someone who is feeling
threatened by the chnges in the world around them.

I have to admit that I have never read Anderson, but I sincerely doubt that he
even saw the long tail replacing the blockbuster as the article implies. They
are the two sides of the same coin, and you can't really have one over
another; the only thing that new technologies have provided is a way for a
company to actually be profitable by focusing on the long tail part of the
market.

~~~
zandorg
Andrew Orlowski is no hack. The Register (which he writes for) just holds a
view against the U.S. mainstream, being a British publication.

~~~
pingswept
I don't know exactly what a hack is, but the article uses a writing style that
makes me think the author is short on evidence. For example: 'the Wired
editor’s theories have no sticking power and the backlash against him has
begun"

"have no sticking power" is an untestable claim, and "backlash" can be as
little as one person writing a blog post that says "Chris Anderson's long tail
theory is wrong, wrong, wrong." The only specific examples cited of evidence
are a reference to Rupert Murdoch and the discussion of a study by Page and
Bud.

To me, it's pretty unimpressive article, but I will confess to holding a
previous conviction that Orlowski is a pinhead. I'd be glad to hear counter-
arguments.

------
bensummers
Note who the author is: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski>

His articles on The Reg often tend towards trolling.

~~~
davidmathers
_His articles on The Reg often tend towards trolling._

Totally. He's like Ted Dziuba with added rhetorical cleverness. Here's "Angle
bracket defenses breached" for example:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/17/web20_worm_knocks_ou...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/17/web20_worm_knocks_out_myspaces/)

I love the opening line: "It's been a rough weekend for Tomorrow's People."

------
mattmaroon
"What is really puzzling is that the backlash against Anderson’s ideas has
taken this long to happen."

Umm, it didn't. Almost as quickly as his book was published, everyone pointed
out that the data sets he based his theory on were deeply flawed, and in fact
proved the opposite. He admitted so on his own blog.

~~~
davidmathers
_He admitted so on his own blog._

I remember him saying that the new data didn't really change anything and
explaining why the long tail idea was still valid.

edit: This is what I was thinking of:
[http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/06/excellent-
hbr-...](http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/06/excellent-hbr-p.html)

 _So in the data she cites, the head of the online music market represents 32%
of the all plays, and the tail represents 68%. That's certainly no challenge
to the Long Tail theory; indeed, it's even more tail-heavy than the data I
cited in my book (probably because I used a more generous estimate of 50,000
tracks for Wal-Mart's inventory)._

------
malbiniak
Isn't the success of Amazon, CD Baby, or Netflix supporting the long tail?
Granted, there are additional dynamics contributing to the success of each,
but...

~~~
stcredzero
Reminds me of this from Eric S. Raymond:

    
    
        ...the idea that the most valuable gift you can give 
        your users is the *luxury of ignorance* — software that 
        works so well, and is so discoverable to even novice 
        users, that they don’t have to read documentation or 
        spend time and mental effort to learn about it.
    

Convenience is the _luxury of ignorance_! We live in a period of time when
life is rife with complex information and complex choices. Mental effort
itself has become a precious commodity. This explains a lot. It also works
against the Long Tail. In order to cultivate esoteric tastes, you need time
and you need to pay attention. The Internet makes that easier, but it also
makes it easier for the mainstream to coopt what's out there on the Long Tail.

~~~
philwelch
"We live in a period of time when life is rife with complex information and
complex choices. Mental effort itself has become a precious commodity. This
explains a lot. It also works against the Long Tail. In order to cultivate
esoteric tastes, you need time and you need to pay attention."

You need time and attention to cultivate popular tastes, too. Once you
discover a taste for jazz fusion or progressive metal or Japanese pop, though,
you can safely stop paying attention to the rest of the music industry.

~~~
stcredzero
"You need time and attention to cultivate popular tastes, too."

Nope. I can just walk into Borders or B&N on the way home from work, and buy
whatever's bestselling in the CD section. Done in a minute or two. (I walk to
work.) What's featured or popular on iTunes? Done in a minute or two. I can
just listen to what's on the Radio. Heck, I can just go to retail outlets, and
they're playing this stuff for me.

The mainstream is still the most convenient, because it has the most resources
behind it, because it's still the most profitable. Additionally, the
mainstream is an enabler of _uncultivated_ taste -- the ultimate convenience,
the ultimate luxury of ignorance.

(In the interest of disclosure, I have played Irish Trad music for over two
decades, and my preference for entertaining myself musically is to _make_ it
myself!)

~~~
philwelch
You know, you'd be surprised but I don't have the slightest damned idea what
the best selling music is right now. A pop song can come out and I don't hear
it for weeks. And I don't own a radio outside of my car.

There's a slight bump when you get into something esoteric for the first time,
but afterwards, you just kind of naturally lose touch.

~~~
stcredzero
_There's a slight bump when you get into something esoteric for the first
time, but afterwards, you just kind of naturally lose touch._

Not only have I been doing Irish Trad for 20 years, I've also taught it in a
music school and competed overseas in it. Thanks for letting a newbie like me
know what it's like to get into something esoteric for the first time.

~~~
philwelch
To be fair, you edited your post after I replied to it. I didn't mean any
disrespect; I was simply stating a point.

Are you saying it's more difficult for you to keep up with Irish Trad than it
is for you to keep up with pop music? (It obviously takes more time and effort
to be a practicing musician than to simply listen to music, but that is a
separate question, one that rather confounds my original question.) In other
words, are you disagreeing with me, or simply being disagreeable?

~~~
stcredzero
Recently, as in the past 2 weeks, I've been listening to more J-Pop.

Yes, it takes more time to enjoy a 3 minute Irish tune you play yourself than
bringing up iTunes and hitting an internet radio station.

Sorry for the disagreeableness. I'm going to go and brew more coffee.

~~~
philwelch
But that's my point--playing it yourself is what takes more time, not the
obscurity of the music.

It's possible to listen to J-Pop, outside of Japan, for almost as little
effort as it takes to listen to local pop on the analog radio. I'd count that
as part of the long tail (at least from an American perspective).

~~~
stcredzero
Even if you just take the obscurity into account, there is a bit more effort
involved. But it's true that we denizens of the Long Tail have used the
Internet to make things easier for each other.

My point is that Pop music can get to the point of ubiquity where it takes
_less than zero_ effort to get exposed to it. It's just floating out there.
The economics drives this.

------
saturdayplace
> Page and Bud found that most of the songs available for purchase had never
> been downloaded, and that the concentration of hits was more pronounced than
> ever before.

The question not answered by this statement is whether the concentration of
hits produce more revenue than the larger tail. The hits might be even more
concentrated in a digital world, but do they compete with the huge back
catalog?

~~~
sethg
Yeah, most of those songs available for purchase _would not have been
available at all_ to most consumers in the pre-Internet era. With online
shopping, small producers may not be _dramatically better off_ (as some Long
Tail hucksters would claim) but they're not worse off and they might be
_marginally_ better off.

