Can we discover value in the long tail?
January 2nd, 2009 by Nikki“While you can have a long tail strategy, you better have a head, because that’s where all the revenue is” - Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) in a 9/08 interview with The McKinsey Quarterly
Reporting on a study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, a recent article in the Times Online claims that the long tail theory has been contradicted. The study found that “more than 10 million of the 13 million [music] tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year.” It’s no surprise that chart toppers sell more than obscure indies, but as Will Page said, “The relative size of the dormant ‘zero sellers’ tail was truly jaw-dropping.”
The long tail theory that niche markets were the future of ecommerce was championed by Chris Anderson in his 2006 book The Long Tail. Anderson (one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world) responded that the sources have to be revealed (“Is it iTunes UK? Some mobile provider?”) before the study can be interpreted meaningfully.
I understand why advocating for the long tail requires an economic argument. And I don’t dismiss the importance of profit in judging the value of the long tail. But is the only possible relevance of the long tail financial?
Back when I was a student of Comparative Literature (“And what are you going to do with that?”), I took a seminar on Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Although Shakespeare is the only household name today, he worked among illustrious contemporary playwrights like Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Fletcher, and Francis Beaumont. One can argue (with footnotes, if only I’d saved my course materials) that Shakespeare’s work was a result of the flowering of English theater in his day. And just as Shakespeare’s celebrated contemporaries influenced and pushed him to greatness, so many more obscure playwrights inspired them.
Similarly, indie hits like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine rose to win the hearts of the masses from a fertile world of indie film without which they would never have existed. The point is, the short tail couldn’t exist without the long tail. If nothing else, the long tail is the key to our culture because it’s where the next creative, innovative short-tail hits will come from.
So I think all 13 million music tracks are important, even if 10 million of them were never purchased legally online. It’s safe to say that someone has heard those musicians, if only in live performance on Monday night at the local café-bar. That long tail is the source of our creative, artistic culture - which might be part of why, in his Beyond the Multiplex blog on Salon, Andrew O’Hehir could report that indie cinema insiders are sanguine despite the rough economy.
As Chris Anderson emphasizes, marketplaces with good filters behave differently from marketplaces with poor filters. At Jinni, we’ve developed discovery tools to help people explore flexibly and as widely or deeply as they like, to stretch their tastes and be part of discovering that next indie hit or simply personal favorite.
Technorati Tags: Long Tail, Chis Anderson
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January 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
Excellente! When I first started my $B Blog 3 Years ago I was fascinated by this whole Long Tail concept* I’m still Hoping that a New HUGE Web2.0 Internet Economy will be created that allows Everybody to simply Make $$$ doing what they love to do! It’s about time the Creative Artistic Folks get a Piece of da Proverbial Money Pie!!
This is Beneficial to Everybody in da World cuz Artzy Peeps GIVE BACK + $pend in their Local Communities something the FAT CATS in the Ivory Towers sadly never do*
Cheers!! Billy ;)) Peace*
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January 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
“Web2.0 Internet Economy will be created that allows Everybody to simply Make $$$ doing what they love to do!”
It’s already here. Most people just don’t realize it yet. But it’ll be felt in many more industries, when even more people start quitting their dayjobs in order to dedicate themselves to what they’re really good at, using the communication tools of the web to market their skills and their products.
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January 4th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Thanks for the comments. Clearly people continue to believe in the long tail - and with good reason. We at Jinni are committed to supporting this artistic and creative wealth!
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January 5th, 2009 at 10:11 am
A very thoughtful column. I especially like the argument that the economics are not the sole criterion of judgment. Cultural creativity is a value in itself, and the finances flow from the creativity, not vice versa.
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January 11th, 2009 at 4:36 am
I notice people whose tastes are firmly within the mainstream, or who only appear to be interested in the money-making side of things rather than the creative side, are very quick to rubbish the Long Tail theory.
I get your point about filters. In my opinion the music business in particular suffers from very poor filters; such as the excessively cosy relationship between the major record companies and the radio stations, or the music press that’s terribly prone both to groupthink and judging artists primarily on criteria other than the actual music.
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January 11th, 2009 at 5:51 am
[...] The Jinni Blog makes a very imporatant point, that the real importance of the Long Tail is not economic, but cultural. If you’re only interested in the size of Simon Cowell’s bank balance or which corporate indie clone bands get playlisted on Radio One, then you might not care about the long tail. But as far as I’m concerned, the long tail is where most of the worthwhile music can be found. More importantly, it’s where the mainstream will be getting it’s new ideas from. [...]
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January 12th, 2009 at 4:21 am
While we all celebrate the cultural benefits of niche music - that is a red herring. Anderson talked about the economics of the long tail - not its existence.
The fact is that the internet has opened up distribution, but it has also increased the difficult of finding peanuts in the turd. I get so many bands trying to promote themselves, i just ignore all of them.
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January 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I agree with you that this has been Anderson’s perspective. But in writing about the issue around the internet, people were saying “is the long tail irrelevant after all?” and lost track (in my opinion) of the fact that the long tail isn’t only relevant for monetary reasons.
I also get your point about the difficulty of finding quality in abundance - have had professional experience with this myself - but still, I can’t bemoan the level of creativity in our society. I think it’s great, even if many people don’t deserve (and won’t find) a wide audience.
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June 3rd, 2009 at 12:36 am
[...] the most useful recommendation service I’ve ever used and is also unique in inclusion of the long tail into the system. Many services notoriously suffer from simply sending people to the same popular [...]
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July 6th, 2009 at 5:37 am
[...] the most useful recommendation service I’ve ever used and is also unique in inclusion of the long tail into the system. Many services notoriously suffer from simply sending people to the same popular [...]
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