Newsletter #112 Chasing the Long Tail

Created on 18/04/07

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Our last newsletter (27th February, 2007) was "Mix, Match and Mash".

Feature Article

In his original “Long Tail” article in the Wired Magazine (based in the US), and subsequent book of the same name, author Chris Anderson puts forward the reasons why online retailers and other web businesses have changed the business landscape.

If you are not sure what the Long Tail is, let me explain:

Traditionally businesses have concentrated on the high volume end of the curve [shown below]. However when choice becomes near-infinite, the volume of business in the tail becomes significant.

Anderson sees three forces that drive the Long Tail marketplace:

1. The democratisation of the tools of production which has meant that the numbers of producers has swollen exponentially. Examples of these tools are the personal computer, digital videocameras and blogging tools. All have allowed millions of new producers to emerge.



2. The democratisation of distribution. Long Tail aggregators such as Amazon, eBay and iTunes have made the tail more available and accessible.



3. The connection of supply and demand. This connection can be via Google searches, Amazon’s recommendations or website links.

The effect of these three forces at work is a surprising one. When consumers can access a product or service with almost infinite choice the tail becomes longer and of more importance. A few examples:

• An average American Borders bookstore carries 100,000 books – 25% of Amazon’s sales are from outside its top 100,000 titles.



• A typical US Wal-Mart carries 55,000 music tracks yet for online music retailer Rhapsody, 40% of its sales are outside its top 55,000.

And the influence of the Long Tail is growing. As consumers are freed from the artificial filtering imposed by music company executives, company buyers and physical store availability, they are finding products that were not previously available to them. And they love the extra choice.

But surely most of this Long Tail is rubbish? Yes a lot of it is, but the sheer volume of it means that there is some high quality work produced. Wikipedia is a prime example, as is the number of bloggers who have achieved prominence, particularly in the US. Try a Google search for Arianna Huffington and you’ll see what I mean. Much of what is produced in the tail is aimed at niche markets too small for large companies.

So OK but how can small businesses benefit?

1. By using the tools of production to develop information or products for niches. What about that Whitepaper on an obscure topic? There will be people interested.



2. Google Adwords (see www.google.com/adwords) has made the production of online advertisements so much easier and affordable for smaller businesses. With Adwords you can create your own advertisements for your products and services and only pay per click through to your site.



3. Search Engine optimisation is relatively inexpensive in comparison with other forms of marketing. It is especially effective for niche offerings.



4. Make more varieties of your products or services. If there is not a significant cost in adding more variants then why not give it a try?

The Long Tail theory shows that a mix of technological forces is shifting demand away from “one size fits all” solutions as customers will choose non-standard if they have the choice. This trend is great for your business if you realise the opportunity.

Hot Tips

Newbies

All browsers allow you to include Webpage link in an email or even send the whole page. But perhaps the quickest way to add a link to an email is with both your browser and your email program open: select the Web address (http:// etc.) by clicking on it, go "Ctrl"+"C" to copy. Go into the email and position the cursor where you want the address to go. "Ctrl"+"V" to paste.

Power Users

If Windows crashes before it gets to the desktop, what should you do? Hit [F8] just before Windows starts loading and select 'Last Known Good Configuration'. This Starts Windows using a system checkpoint stored in the registry to hopefully undo whatever happened to cause the trouble.

Interesting Sites

If you're looking for imagery and don't want to pay for it you might want to give PicFindr a try. The site is a "metasearch" engine in that it queries a number of free image sites simultaneously. The results are shown across the screen and a neat feature is that if you hold your mouse over an image it loads a larger preview. www.picfindr.com

InsiteFul Quotes

"An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex." Edgar Wallace.

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

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