Notes on Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail

We still obsess over hits Chris Anderson observes. “The era of one-size-fits-all is ending, and in its place is something new, a market of multitudes.” (5)

This book like Friedman’s The World is Flat, is a combination of well storyed reportage and analysis. Anderson begins with a story of a conversation with Robbie Vann-Adibe, the CEO of Ecast, a digital jukebox. Vann-Adibe asked Anderson the percentage of the 10,000 albums available on the jukeboxes sold at least one track per quarter. Anderson knew the 80/20 rule, namely 20% of the products generally accounts for 80% of revenues. Yet he also sensed that Vann-Adibe was asking a trick question so he responded with 50%. The answer however was a stunning 98%. Here the long tail was born. It appeared in an article that was published in Wired magazine in October 2004.