What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand
in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone?
The Long Tail is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the
niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets
are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of
unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to
advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing
everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to
get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what
consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to
songs on iTunes to advertising on Google. However, this is not just a
virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new
economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its
power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of
the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our
focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can
create a new market as big as the one we already know.The Long Tail is
really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in
distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the
definition of what's commercially viable across the board. If the 20th
century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.