July 26, 2005  The "long tail" is social  Chris Anderson writes
a refreshing rant about the misuse of the Long Tail. But he's
partly wrong.  Anderson writes:  There are many distortions of
the term, but the most common one is to use it as a newly-
positive synonym for "fringe". Invoking the Long Tail is not a
magic wand to explain away the apparent lack of demand for what
you've got. The Long Tail is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for
poor-selling product. Or weak sectors. Or bad ideas.  Anderson
goes on to say that business models that focus only on fringe
content are doomed to fail. Effective "long tail business
models", like Amazon, combine popular content with niche
content, and use the popular content to draw people in.
Anderson's right -- Indy-only online music services draw much
less business than providers like Amazon that can use popular
content as a draw. A customer might check out a Britney Spears
album, and then use the recommendation engine to traverse to
related and much less well-known music.