The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand - Softcover

Chris Anderson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844138518 ISBN 13: 9781844138517

Publisher: Random House Business Books, 2007

Synopsis

The Long Tail is both a powerful new economic force in the entertainment industry and perhaps the best lens on a big new trend in the business world overall: the economics of abundance. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the rise of the niche is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Consider this example: In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, an account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It was only a modest success and was soon forgotten. A decade later, Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again. What happened In short, Amazon recommendations. It created the Touching the Void phenomenon by combining infinite shelf space with real-time information about buying trends and public opinion. However, this is not just a virtue of online booksellersit is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs on the iTunes Music store and Rhapsody. If the 20th-century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.

About this title

About the Author

Chris Anderson is editor in chief of Wired magazine, a position he has held since 2001. He has worked at The Economist , where he served as U.S. business editor. His career began at the two premier science journals, Science and Nature , where he served in several editorial capacities. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from George Washington University and studied Quantum Mechanics and Science Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in Berkeley, California.

From AudioFile

Anderson's premise that Internet-based retailing and personal expression enable much wider variety and more profitable niche markets and, thus, are killing a formerly "hit-driven" culture and retail world is somewhat controversial. (Just Google THE LONG TAIL.) But this audiobook presents the argument well, with much detail and many current (late 2005) examples. Christopher Nissley's reading style fits the content; he's clipped and staccato, like Anderson's writing. His narration is helpful to the listener who prefers not to get bogged down in the theoretical and technical parts of the book. Anderson himself reads the introduction, and there's a brief author interview at the end of Disc 7, plus downloadable copies of the book's graphics. T.F. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Business Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1844138518
• ISBN 13: 9781844138517
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256