The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More

This is the best book I’ve read in about a year.

It explains so much of the internet phenomena. It references all the best contemporary work on this subject but pulls it all together in a unified framework.

I thought this was a good book that should have been about half the length that it actually was. It's too bad no abridged version is available. I agreed with the author's ideas, but about 3 hours in, I really felt that he was repeating himself unnecessarily.

This is the best book I’ve read in about a year.

It explains so much of the internet phenomena. It references all the best contemporary work on this subject but pulls it all together in a unified framework.

As a small business owner, this book has changed the way I think about our product and services.

I found this book to be interesting and dynamic. I could not turn it off. I have listened to it twice to make sure I did not miss anything.
Buy this book if you want to learn about the past, present and future of business.

The Long Tail is a well-presented, well-researched book describing the democratization of the means of producing and distributing goods and information. The long tail is what Chris Anderson calls the effect of aggregating vast numbers of like items and graphing them as hits and niches in such a way that the chart looks like a 'reverse hockey stick' with the handle being the tail.

In a digital age the cost and ease of producing niche products and media has both redeemed and made irrelevant Karl Marx? critique of capitalist society. We all can virtually own the means of production and we can independently have access to markets without capital, or very much of it.

In an age of search engines we have the ability to filter an unbelievable range of options so that markets can be made from the thinnest quantity of items and to the smallest niche number of consumers. The Long Tail, once irrelevant and inaccessible, now is driving the digital ecomony.

As a listen, the unabridged version can be a little more detail than you might need, but stick with it and the detail will payoff.

Unlike some books of this type, the audible version does not suffer because you cannot visually scan backward to review when the argument becomes too complex. The reader, Christopher Nissley does a great job.

Being in the book industry, we found this thesis thought provoking. It was a challenging but much needed wake up call. Well illustrated with current business innovations and trends, it helped me to appreciate how quickly the world is changing and gave us some ideas on positioning ourselves for the future.

There is quite a following to this book and several websites are devoted to its discussion. Recommended for any business owner, across all industries! A worthy herald of sea-change.

Great book ! Must read...

Nevertheless, it would help if Audible would process the audio file: the mastering is poor at the beginning. Should use a de-esser, an audio processor effect that removes the "S" consonant's higher frequency that makes for uncomfortable listening... at times it is almost unbearable...

A bit long at first but overall a great listen...I would recommend

As a consumer, I've been delighted with the recent explosion of choices. As a retailer, I've been struggling to take advantage of new technologies to satisfy an expanded internet market.

This book puts the changing business climate into a historical and conceptual perspective that makes sense. They never taught us this in college in the 80's, but today they'd better teach it to business students, because success and survival in today's marketplace requires an understanding of the process described in this book.

Some people understand some of these mechanisms intuitively or hazily, based on their own observations and that may be enough, but seeing the whole concept outlined so clearly, with so many examples is enlightening and inspiring.