There's a major shift in the way businesses offer their products
to the public, according to Wired editor-in-chief Chris
Anderson. His new book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of
Business Is Selling Less of More, explores the ways in which our
culture and economy are moving away from hits (popular products
and markets), which reside at the head of the demand curve, and
toward a huge number of niches in the tail of that curve. This
Long Tail is resulting in a massive increase in choices for
consumers, who until now have, by and large, unwittingly had
their tastes shaped by what is widely available or most popular.
BookPage asked Anderson, who writes a popular blog on the
subject, to explain it all; he responded from a plane high over
Texas.  What do you mean by the Long Tail? Last year, 65,000
music albums were released only 700 made it to the shelves of
America's No. 1 CD retailer, Wal-Mart. If you're into anything
that isn't in the top 700 (whether it's non-mainstream or simply
not a new release), you underst