27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, Chris Anderson




The idea behind this book is that era of commercial hit is a dead concept as the best businesses in the future will be those who supply to the niche community that servers for the niche community. The idea is based on the as trend that many current trends including education is making the small minority the largest percent. Where on a test 80% of the content will only be on 20% of the material. To me the 3 most important lessons from book is the idea that online markets are becoming the norm and the more niche markets are able to outperform oversaturated markets. Or if you can provide a range of niche things you can compete with even the best of sellers. The next lesson is that idea that in today’s society anyone can produce anything and that content is easier and easier to make so in order to compete you much make content that appeals to a smaller market. Finally, with the internet and the current state of society accessing products are the easiest it has ever been and because of this accessibility it makes profit margins ridiculous. I can agree to this claim as I am too am guilty of buying products because it made small company or farmer community. This book real made me rethink my venture a little bit as it wasn’t niche venture but it would help people connected people to big business and their technology. Which to me is could be considered a niche service as I will providing a service that is indeed offered by many but not mainstream enough to make a difference. Personally I feel this book over exaggerate some of its point as yes it is best time to produce and producing is easier more than ever but competing with many of the big names is becoming more and more impossible and the measure of success is harder to define. I feel the future people will want to be different but the idea of commercial hits being dead or the idea that niche will over take the norm is very unlikely. A fun assignment would be interview the community and find what niche item or niche product they purchase frequently and how they would react to business that sold all they products they normal elsewhere or in multiple stores.