The Long Tail

Anyone interested in e-commerce and how endless choice is going to change the marketplace, should definitely read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. Its a very insightful book.

Seth Godin, the marketing guru, said "The ideas in this book are going to be talked about for the next ten years. Might as well get a copy now."

The main idea is that the times when the world was driven by hits (best-selling products) is about to be over. What is going on (already!) is that if you give the consumer endless choice, then the products that even sell once per quarter combined sell as much as hits or even outsell them. In the virtual room you don't have to worry about shelf space, you can list as many products as you like (millions!).

Its more and more a niche world, people's taste is more and more specialized. Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

When I finished the book, I instantly got ideas how to use the Long Tail theory to my advantage in business. Now its just a matter of time when Google buys my websites.