Review: Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail"

In his book “The Long Tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more”, Chris Anderson adeptly weaves together important lessons from economics, mass culture, and technology to demonstrate the relevance of the Long Tail in the changing media marketplace. The book is centered around the notion that the Internet, the democratization of tools of production and distribution, and the ability to tap into means of recommendation and consumer word of mouth to connect supply to demand in the Long Tail have allowed for the realization of a more complete marketplace in which hit and niche markets patently coexist. Once bound by shelf space and high costs of distribution, our choices were limited only to “hits” because it was economically inefficient to lend space to products that would not produce the highest amounts of revenue. Now, reductions in the costs of distribution and advances in technology have revealed the true marketplace, and, as a result, consumers are offered more variety than ever before and the aggregate of these niche markets in the Long Tail are proving to be as financially lucrative as the hits. This explosion of choice has important cultural and economic implications for consumers, artists, marketers, and business owners. Anderson provides an accessible discussion of the economics behind the Long Tail, explaining that, in spite of the newfound abundance of media in the Long Tail, the notion of scarcity underlying neoclassical economics likely still applies and, thus, all content creators may still be competing for a piece of the same-sized pie. “Although there may be near infinite selection of all media, there is still a scarcity of human attention and hours in the day. Our disposable income is limited. On some level, it’s still a fixed-pie game. Offer a couch potato a million TV shows and he or she may end up watching no more television than before, just different television, better suited to that individual.” He further addresses the question of whether burgeoning choice increases demand overall or simply shifts consumer taste toward the niches. The question is important particularly because it has implications for content creators in the short head of the curve (the “hitmakers”). Anderson essentially states that the answer depends upon the extent to which the media rival with other types of media for consumer attention, but generally asserts that the primary effect over time will be to shift our tastes more toward the niches. He goes on to describe the development of a micro-culture era in which people are re-forming into “tribes of interest” that are based on shared niche interests rather than the former watercooler era in which most of us consumed the same generic pool of hit content. “The shift from the generic to the specific doesn’t mean the end of the existing power structure or a wholesale shift to an all-amateur, laptop culture. Instead, it’s simply a rebalancing of the equation, an evolution from an “Or” era of hits or niches (mainstream culture vs. subcultures) to an “And” era. Today, our culture is increasingly a mix of head and tail, hits and niches, institutions and individuals, professionals and amateurs. Mass culture will not fall, it will simply get less mass. And niche culture will get less obscure.” (It is worth noting that The New Yorker brought this up as a point of contention, stating that abundance and variety do not necessarily result in fragmentation and niche adoption, that consumers are as subject to mass marketing as ever, and, if it weren’t for piracy, revenue for supergroups like U2 and The Rolling Stones would be as high as ever; it is also worth noting recent data from Denmark that I summarized in my last post, revealing a decrease in the number of content creators and income among artists in the head of the distribution and an increase in the number of content creators and income in the extreme end of the tail (consistent with the notion of our attention shifting away from hits toward niches); similarly, the data point to a number of factors related to declining sales other than piracy.) This new market poses challenges to industries entrenched in the hitmaking business (e.g. major music labels). Anderson highlights the frequently discrepant incentives for content creators at the head (where the incentive is usually financial) and the tail (where the incentive may be more to enhance reputation) and the obstacles this presents to the distribution of music and other media content in the changing marketplace: “At the top of the curve, the studios, major labels, and publishers defend their copyright fiercely. In the middle, the domain of independent labels and academic presses, it’s a gray area. Farther down the tail, more firmly in the noncommercial zone, an increasing number of content creators are choosing explicitly to give up some of their copyright protections…In short, some creators care about copyright and some don’t. Yet the law doesn’t distinguish between them – copyright is automatically granted and protected unless explicitly waived. As a result, the power of “free” is obscured by fears over piracy and is often viewed with suspicion, not least because it evokes unfortunate echoes of both communism and hippie sloganeering.” Some of the most interesting discussion in the book highlights the importance of aggregators and filters in helping consumers navigate the Long Tail. As our access to and interest in a wide variety of artists and media explodes, the need for trusted recommendation increases in order to filter out the “crap”. Of particular importance are Anderson’s insights on filter technologies and the need to create meaningful playlists within niches as opposed to cross-genre playlists and recommendations that fail to simplify the mass of available content based on criteria that are relevant to niche consumers. He also describes the importance of tapping consumer word of mouth to connect supply to demand in the Long Tail. To that end, the new tastemakers – ranging from celebrities to bloggers to trusted peers – are leading the way over corporate push. All are part of the collective intelligence helping to navigate consumers further down the long tail. And Anderson provides poignant examples of how marketers are having to readjust to the empowerment of consumer tastemakers in promoting artists. Additionally, he notes that artists are experiencing similar empowerment as the aforementioned democratization of production and distribution technologies renders them less reliant on major music labels to attain success. In the end, Anderson makes crystal clear the economic value of Long Tail content, highlights opportunities for growth among digital business, and, most importantly, illuminates significant barriers to creating both a “consumer paradise” and thriving business model. The insights provide food for thought for any professional involved in the media or entertainment industry, but hopefully will resonate particularly with major music labels and other hitmakers. Anderson quotes author Paul Graham on Google’s unprecedented success in the face of changing times: “The Web naturally has a certain grain, and Google is aligned with it. That’s why their success seems so effortless. They’re sailing with the wind, instead of sitting becalmed praying for a business model, like the print media, or trying to tack upwind by suing their customers, like Microsoft and the record labels. Google doesn’t try to force things to happen their way. They try to figure out what’s going to happen, and arrange to be standing there when it does.” Chris Anderson’s book, “The Long Tail”, provides insight into what’s already happening and what’s likely to come – it’s up to you to heed the wisdom. (For more on Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” visit his interview with Billboard.) 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