It’s the word (and book) of the moment. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.

Opportunities on the web vs ‘real life’: the scope of possibilities is now described as ‘the long tail’. . e.g ‘There’s a long tail of sales for books on the web”. I do love a new shorter way of describing something.

In brief, before I start on my thoughts, The Long Tail describes the depth of items and information for sale or on offer in the net. The Big Head is it’s opposite. It’s mainstream vs niche.

For example, in Movies, the film is given massive media budget, is constantly pitched in the media & sales are described in weekend takings. The Big Head is the initial exposure of promotion into the marketplace, using traditional media (mostly) and spend is heavy.

Once the film is on it’s decline revenue is achieved other areas, eg.  in merchandise, home cinemas, international distribution & television/ cable screenings.

A film that turns cult, like Star Wars, has revivals of sales and marketing but lower down the channel, eg. selling action figures on eBay. The difference is the cost to market, the long tail is of course far cheaper to participate in, but the results are impressive. Whereas a store products follow the 80/20 rule, 80% of business comes from 20% of the range, a Web based retailer can offer unlimited products, well, at least 10X. So there is always something to buy.

The Web allows a long tail of items for sale. The choice is unlimited. There are niches for everyone.

There are 3 forces in order to participate fully.

• Make it – either produced or sourced
• Get it out – create the place for the item
• Find it – technologies & methods for searching

The Finding it, is the most crucial part. It’s connecting supply and demand or just letting someone find something they didn’t know still existed. There are two parts to finding. One is you find it yourself, via search technology. The other is someone finds is for you. The someone can be a friend, a collegue or a recorded recommendation on a similar site, like a blog or wishlist or wiki.

The power of recommendation is the web’s strength in long tail marketing. It’s an age of Recommendation, where blogs, wikis, hyperlinks, discussion groups or hyperlinked news page taking you directly to a product or offering. Customers help other find things. No need for sales staff!

next time: long tail & tv. When the Movie, TV and music industry understands how to release their content, there’ll be an explosion.