Book Review: The Long Tail
The 2006 book by Wired editor Chris Anderson (Hyperion) is now out in a new, revised edition. This review covers the original, hard cover edition.
This book was recommended reading shortly after it came out, by David Warlick. He used the LT in a presentation, and then I picked up the book to learn more. The title refers to the shape of a graph(ic) that the author determines represents the business success of companies like Amazon.com, iTunes music store, and other online retailers.
It’s a tale of variety versus what’s popular. His ideas have finally come true, in a sense. WalMart was known as the #1 music retailer in the U.S. They don’t sell everything, but instead, carry in their stores all the popular stuff. This makes sense: make the most money by carrying only the products the populace wants most.
Then a company like Amazon comes around. They sell popular, but they can sell just about everything because they’re online. They may not sell a lot of Bach compact discs compared to Coldplay, but they have enough Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin to sell that it’s still a significant money maker. WalMart doesn’t have the floorspace for Bach and Coldplay, so they just choose what will move fastest.
This year, iTunes moved into the #1 spot as U.S. music retailer: variety beat-out just what’s popular.
So yes, the Long Tail is about business and an Internet-era economy. As an educator, might I like this book?
I think this book has limited appeal to educators. There are a lot of examples in the book, and you might do just as well looking up this concept online. Again, I found the examples good, but one after the other, I already “got it” and I didn’t find the book as easy a read as some others I’ve been looking at. I had to actually force my way through to the end.
I think the “Long Tail” concept has implications for educators: in an online society with so many choices, can we provide opportunities for students to explore just about anything? Yes! The Wikipedia is another example of a “Long Tail” phenomenon. The school library’s encyclopedia isn’t going to have information on every topic, but the Wikipedia, Google News, and other online sources will. That’s a lot to chew on, but our very limited 19th-century idea of curriculum seems rather limiting in a 21st century world.
The average teacher can skip this one. Professional developers might like it, and progressive school leaders may enjoy the newer edition, linked above.