The Long Tail

People wrongly assume that power laws mean that, if you’re not in the top N, you’re dead meat.

Wired has a great article, pointed out to me by Anil, talking about the long tail of a power law distribution.

Moving from an economy of scarcity to an economy of abundance is a fun and crazy thing.

What’s really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits. Take books: The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon’s book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are (see “Anatomy of the Long Tail“). In other words, the potential book market may be twice as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the economics of scarcity. Venture capitalist and former music industry consultant Kevin Laws puts it this way: “The biggest money is in the smallest sales.”

This has huge implications for my musician friends, because their writing style does not lend itself to writing hits, but rather simply making art.