The Long Tail, How Endless Choice is creating unlimited demand , by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine.

There are two types of people in the world, those who have never heard of the long tail, those who’ve heard it hyped to death.

This is an interesting read, a book that heralds the end of a best seller obsessed world which itself became a best seller. An argument that tired formulas/ and hyped imitations no longer work which has ironically been the focus of much hype . Anderson’s idea, originally set out in an article in Wired Magazine is that “Hit-driven economics is a creation of an age without enough room to carry everything for everybody”. Now however the virtual world offers us not only an almost limitless catalogue of physical things (Amazon) but an almost limitless catalogue of virtual things which can be delivered frictionlessly, but intelligent ways of searching through almost limitless choice (Amazon recommendations).

Those in retail business are familiar with a power law graph, the vast majority of sales come from a few items, with big profits tailing off rapidly. That long tail represents previously untapped possibilities according to Anderson.

The idea can be (and has been) conveyed in an article, so why write a book? Anderson does a good job of seeking out real world examples of long tail economics. Disappointingly for those who hoped to dig into the statistics Anderson remains true to his journalistic role of presenting the Big Idea without such distractions such as statistics, power laws or log functions. He claims its because he was sworn to secrecy by various large corporations, as if that’s ever stopped a journalist.

Its a good aeroplane read, I finished it in two sittings: a flight to from Cape Town to Johannesburg and back, it required about 3 hours in total.