
 Excellent HBR piece challenging the Long Tail - nickb
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/06/excellent-hbr-p.html
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sutro
I can't believe Chris Anderson is still pimping "The Long Tail." (His latest
book: "The Longer Tail.") As his website mentions, his initial "The Long Tail"
Wired article came out in 2004. OK, we get the concept. Please come up with
some new material. Perhaps the fact that he still has an audience for "The
Long Tail" books and speaking engagements proves his theory that the long tail
does exist.

~~~
jraines
If tomorrow you come up with a catchy term for a concept that captures the
imagination of the business media market and then write a bestseller around
that concept -- I guarantee you will still be "pimping" it 4 years from now.

~~~
tx
Even though the "concept" is a matter of common sense understandable by any
3rd grader... These "business types" surely know how to blow an average
paragraph of text into an article, then into a book, then into a site...

It's almost like the dude discovered that circles are "more round than
squares" and makes a career out of it.

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speby
Funny, rarely have I heard "excellent" in relation to HBR content. Every issue
of HBR magazine tends to be re-hashing of various topics on "Leadership" from
issues past. I did read "The Long Tail" so I'll give this one a shot.

~~~
akd
This is not a rehash of previous topics, but is mathematically flawed. I
commented on the blog itself since there were more comments there than here.

~~~
ilamont
I read the comment, which was good. I only wish Anderson himself was more
clear about his attitude toward the HBR piece -- he calls it "rock solid" and
says that he's sure the analysis is accurate, and then proceeds to say that
the author's use of percentages is misleading and he disagrees with the
conclusions.

~~~
nickb
Anderson collaborated with Prof. Elberse and she consulted on the book and
came short endorsing it (strange, don't you think?) so Anderson didn't come
out with any hard-hiting arguments against her well-researched piece.

Incidentally, Lee Gomes of WSJ pretty much nailed it two years ago:

[http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115387606762117314.ht...](http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115387606762117314.html)

Also, Lee told me that he wrote a new article on this and it will be published
this Wed in WSJ. We'll see what he's come up with.

