May 20, 2005
 

The Long Tail

I remember reading this article on the Wired newsletter last year. But for some strange reason, it didn't grab my attention. I bumped into that article again a few days ago and this time it began to really interest me.

Check out the Wikipedia entry and The Long Tail blog.

I will not be going in-depth into an analysis of what the concept is all about. I'll let you read about it from the above links and commentary from several other more qualified sources.

To me, it seems that while it is obviously awesome to be able to cater to a huge market segment which might otherwise not exist, this would only be possible if the cost of producing & selling to that chunk of the market is minimal. The margins for a store on an item which sells like hot cakes are obviously going to be high. But the margins on an item which is outdated or is bought by very few people will obviously not be high. So the cost of production & selling must be as low as possible because of the slim margin.