The Long Tail Everywhere

What does The Long Tail mean for the future of business, for our future?  Chris Anderson talks about the different industries outside of media and entertainment that the long tail effects.  What about industries that are not sales oriented?  For instance, simplyhired pulls job postings from all over the internet and offers a place where a single search term could turn up thousands of jobs.  Let’s say that you want to be a carpenter, but you only want to make desks, you could type in carpenter and desks and return any jobs across the internet with those words.  Obviously, a job that specific is not going to fall into the top 10 job choices of today, however, it is a valid career and one that may be hard to find.  Jobadder talks about the importance of niche job boards.  People want to easily find jobs without having to sort through thousands of top 10 job ads first.  The Long Tail applies to many different things outside of sales. 

By writing this blog, I am becoming part of a niche, student blogs.  One of my favorite blogs, Zen Habits, falls into The Long Tail of blogging.  There aren’t many Zen focused blogs, and Zen Habits is very helpful and informative.  I doubt I would read many other Zen blogs given the opportunity.  The one I read is just fine and fills that niche in my blog reading life.  This blog posting talks specifically about niche blogging.  It would be hard to maintain a niche blog unless a clear audience developed out of the readership.  But, there is a definite place in cyber space for niche blogs. 

My favorite niche blogs are opera blogs.  I studied opera in undergrad and sang professionally for a short time after graduation.  Obviously, I have chosen a new career path, but I still consider opera to be a big part of my life.  Many opera companies have bloggers on staff to talk about new productions at the company and to discuss what is going on in the opera world.  Opera bloggers connect me with a world that is hard to stay connected to unless you have a direct line to an insider.  The MetBlog is one of my favorite opera blogs.  Different bloggers from the company post about their experiences at the Met.  I love reading about young performer’s butterflies before they step on stage or employees experiences with world premiere operas.  Without these niche blogs, I would lose connection to a big part of my life.

So, what does this mean for the future?  Simply, I think Anderson hit the nail on the head.  We are a world of niche consumers, but it can be taken one step further.  We are a world of niche people.  We all have interests that fall into niches and we want to stay informed about what is going on in that part of our lives.  So, tell me about a few of your niche interests and how blogs or Websites have helped you stay in touch with that part of who you are.    

The Long Tail

“Given the option to pick a boy band or find something new, more and more people are opting for exploration, and are typically more satisfied with what they find.”  This sounds very similar to John Battelle’s The Search, but it is not.  Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail takes many of Battelle’s ideas and applies them directly to many different industries.  The opening of the book focuses on the idea that as humans we value the option to find for ourselves what we like and not simply respond to what Big Media is telling us to like.  Incorporating the value of search and personalized suggestions provided by your index information allows a world of infinite options.  I cannot remember the last time I walked around a music store and browsed the albums on the wall.  I can say that I spend hours a week searching for the newest song or the next big artist.  I love introducing my friends to new music.  Why is that?  Well, so many of us consider the songs on our MP3 player the soundtrack of our lives.  So, the moment when you hear a song that touches you right where you are, you want to share it.  Big Media does not cater to our individual lives and the moment we are in.  All the choices floating in the long tail are a picture of moments in our lives and the power of search at its best.

The Music Search is a blog that I read to get insight into hot new music.  The author and I share similar tastes in music and I trust the recommendations.  Many of the suggestions would not make it onto a top 100 list, but they are often on my top playlist.  Another blog I read often posts song suggestions that are obscure but very powerful.  Again, the ability to find your own top 100 contributes to the power of the long tail. 

So, let’s delve a little further into what the long tail means for the sellers.  Everything Chris Anderson says makes perfect sense, but it really started to come together when I related his ideas to some of my purchases.  For instance, one of my favorite movies is International Velvet.  The movie is no longer produced, so copies are very rare.  On Amazon, a copy of International Velvet costs fifty dollars.  This title would definitely be a part of the long tail.  However, a fifty dollar movie makes a more significant profit than a ten dollar best seller.  Anderson’s ideas really are revolutionary for the future of so many different industries. 

Now, onto next week, first let me apologize for leaving you hanging for a few days.  Early Tuesday morning in my pre-coffee haze I and my car succumbed to the slick Maryland roads and alas the old Saturn is no more.  So, let’s hope the power of search and the long tail of the car industry will pay off in my quest for a new vehicle.  How was your week?   

Let’s Wikify

Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide said that “Wikinomics illuminates the trust we are seeing in markets around the globe.  The more you share, the more you win.  Wikinomics sheds light on the many faces of business collaboration and presents a powerful new strategy for business leaders in a world where customers, employees, and low-cost producers are seizing control.”  How many times did your mom and dad say to you, “you have to share?”  Why can’t we take that idea into the corporate world?  Wow, can you imagine a business world discussed in Wikinomics based solely on “community, collaboration and self-organization?”  Can you imagine a business world where we all come together, share ideas and make those ideas reality?  I wish I could imagine that.  Most business models in today’s society are structured in a very hierarchical manner.  Every department is based on employee and supervisor and every person is striving for the higher classification or title.  I was visiting a friend at T.G.I.Friday’s yesterday and she was talking about this idea.  Of course, I did not see it at the time.  She explained that the restaurant would be so much more successful if the managers could treat the employees as equals, and if they could not manage the equals bit, at least treat them like adults.  At the end of the day, people want to be respected.  They want to feel that their ideas are important to management.  Aren’t we all more productive in a collaborative and respectful environment?

As you have seen on my blog, I am the biggest advocate for personal contact.  I love this idea on lifehack.org.  Set up an online “water cooler” for your employees.  Obviously, this will not replace face time, but it is a great alternative.  It is a place to talk about what you watched on television over the weekend, see if a coworker can help you move this week or just connect with one another over something other than work.  I love this idea. 

I have been really inspired by what Wikinomics has to say.  I love this quote, “These changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power, and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history.”  I must admit I am one of those people that suffer from “star struck” syndrome in the business world.  I have a tendency to feel, wow he or she is a CEO of such and such, they would never want to collaborate with me.  The “wiki” way is changing all of this.  People really do want to share their ideas.   

So, let’s talk about my plan for next week.  Another article from lifehack.org talks about the need for us to “wikify” our lives.  I have decided to wikify my own life.  I honestly can’t imagine having everything in one place.  How many times have you found a new song or thought of an addition to your to-do list and simply forgotten to write it down?  Well, you simply need to have a wiki.  You can include anything and everything in one place.  Your Outlook does not hold the keys to all of your reminders.  So, try to wikify your life this week and see how it goes.