The Long Tail is short?
The Long Tail of Chris Anderson: a market with a high freedom of choice will create a certain degree of inequality by favoring the upper 20% of the items (“hits” or “head”) against the other 80% (“non-hits” or “long tail”).
Thus there is enough “place” in the Long Tail to do business.
Similar buying patterns online as offline
Anita Elbers from the Harvard Business School explains in her “Should you invest in the Long Tail” (6 pages), how she
has analyzed and has come to the conclusion the purchase patterns online, aren’t different from the buying patterns offline for video rentals.
The research showed that success is concentrated in ever fewer best-selling titles at the head of the distribution curve:
Blockbusters and hit movies getting purchased the most, although there is abundance of choice in online video.
Social online behavior
Even online people are behaving in similar social manners.
Thus people prefer to experience the same things as other people experience at the same time. Even though they are not connected or communicating.
Heavy buyers get into the tail
Customers who rent obscure movies are in general the heaviest users of the online service. Thus these customers with a large capacity for content are venturing into the tail. They are more experienced.
Whereas light customers concentrate on the hit movies: maybe they are blurred by the marketing of these blockbusters?
Video of Lee Gomez on the study of Anita Elbers
If you don’t want to read the 6 pages you can view the video of Lee Gomes of The Wall Street Journal explaining the study and conclusion of Anita Elbers.
Still if you are a Producer or a Retailer you should read her advices.
Discussion by Chris Andersen
Chris Andersen has discussed these findings and conclusions in his blog.
Although he finds it an excellent article, he doesn’t agree with all the conclusions as he finds proof of his Long Tail in the data from Anita Elbers.
Right or wrong?
There is probably no right or wrong.
Still the social online purchase behavior stands.
Maybe Anderson and Anita Elbers should take a look into The Warshaw curve and get an opinion about the Valley of Mediocre between the Land of Free and the Premium Highland.
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