SIIA Content Forum: Chris Anderson Keynote
Chris wrote an article in Wired awhile back called The Long Tail. He’s a big-time blogger and is turning the article into a book by the same name. The subtitle sums it up quite nicely: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand. To be quite honest, I thought the original article did the topic justice – I’m not sure how much more important information will be added for the book.
The whole “long tail” phenomenon is easily understood. It’s the benefit of having an endless (or close to endless) supply of products/inventory, primarily in the online world (vs. the world of brick-and-mortar retailing). He cited numerous examples including Rhapsody vs. Walmart, Netflix vs. Blockbuster and Amazon vs. B&N. The resulting curve for the “long tail” is the good old y=1/x. Makes sense. I get it. This whole “Internet thing” might just catch on. What else is there to say?
Some of his logic is a bit oversimplified, especially when it comes to print books. For example, although print-on-demand (POD) is a viable option in some cases, it doesn’t always solve the problem. So if the unit cost for a POD product is too high (or the original book specs don’t match up well to POD specs), what choice does a publisher have regarding a book that sells 5-10 copies/month and is now out of inventory? A 1,000-unit print run, which is typically as low as you’d want to go, results in a 100- to 200-month supply. That’s a tough call to make, especially if your only other alternative is to take the book out of print.
Regardless, Chris does point out the fact that the “long tail” presents “opportunities to revalue content archives”, as he put it. The POD scenario outlined above just shows that the solution isn’t always as simple as it seems.
Just saw him at a Book industry conference a few weeks ago
in NYC...here is the link to his presentation...
http://www.bisg.org/docs/MIP06_Anderson.pdf
Posted by: John Helmus | May 17, 2006 at 02:35 PM