Is the Long Tail Concept by Chris Anderson Flawed

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Is the Long Tail Concept by Chris Anderson Flawed?

The Long Tail concept is a term that was first coined by Chris Anderson in the year 2004 and ever since then it has managed to gain and attract considerable popularity and acceptance across a wide range of industries.

So then the question is - what is this Long Tail concept?

Wikipedia defines it this way:

The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article[1] to describe the niche strategy of businesses, such as Amazon.com or Netflix, that sell a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities.

However, the concept of a frequency distribution with a long tail — the concept at the root of Anderson’s coinage — has been studied by statisticians since at least 1946…

Of course the first impression that the definition implies is that the concept has to do with an economic concept within a niche set up in order for this concept to work effectively.

Let us have a visual presentation of this concept to better grasp this idea.

We will now take it a step further and try to understand this concept.

A while ago Ken Evoy the president of SiteSell a leading company dedicated to helping small business people around the world to set and establish their own successful online businesses had an interview with Chris Anderson about this concept. You can read the written transcript of the interview here.

This concept has of late been applied to other non business related issues.

Donald Latumahina wrote an interesting post last year on which he discussed 7 ways that you can get ahead in life by applying the Long Tail concept.

Presently, the Long Tail concept is much alive and still talked about even as I write this post. Here are two latest blog posts addressing this concept.

• An argument against the long tail

• The social mobile Long Tail 2.0

Based on all that has transpired ever since Chris Anderson coined this term and how much interest this concept has continued to attract, I must say it was surprising to read this interesting article in which an Harvard associate professor Anita Elberse presents a different picture.

It was a compelling idea: In the digitized world, there’s more money to be made in niche offerings than in blockbusters. The data tell a different story.

So now the question lingering my mind is:

Do you think the Long Tail Concept by Chris Anderson Flawed?

That is an answer I will be wise enough to leave it upon you to read and come up with your own conclusion. You can read the full article on the Harvard Business Review by clicking on the link above.

On the next post we will take this concept and apply it to affiliate marketing business and see how the Long Tail concept is relevant to any affiliate marketer and ways we can use it to gain a competitive advantage over those affiliate who are not using this simple but powerful concept. Till then have a wonderful day.

Update:

Here is the post I promised. Long Tail and Affiliate Marketing Business