Comments on: Three Books This Summer

By: Mr Wave Theory

Mr Wave Theory — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 07:47:59 +0000

Andy Kessler Prophecies the End of Medicine…

Andy Kessler is putting excerpts of his very thought-provoking book, The End of Medicine, online. The book is about how the technology revolution that drove the adoption of the PC will make human doctors obsolete and turn healthcare into a commodity …

By: Oluseyi

Oluseyi — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:08:15 +0000

According to the Long Tail, the “big winners” are of course the aggregators and distributors, but the “small winners” are the niche content producers, because these aggregators and distributors, with their use of what Anderson calls filters, drive traffic toward their content that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

As aggregators, they aggregate a profit on each niche product they distribute/popularize, but that effect compounds itself as word of mouth turns the aggregator into a “destination,” so the per unit gain for the aggregator rises at several multiples that of the individual niche producer.

Nowhere, however, does Anderson suggest otherwise. So I’m curious what you’re “not a believer” in. Where Anderson does err, in my opinion, is in attempting to apply the Long Tail to everything. In fact, Tim Wu wrote for Slate on that very problem: http://www.slate.com/id/2146225

Cheers.

By: Daniel Griffin

Daniel Griffin — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:26:08 +0000

That makes sense enough for me, thank you very much.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:57:35 +0000

i have kept my beliefs to myself so far, though have talked to friends in private. i believe that long tail as a concept works, if you have a distribution channel.

however from the content creator perspective, it doesn't take into harsh economic realities of life. I would love to let you both know of my private thoughts.

funnily enough, the book convinced me more about my theory that the distribution channels are big winners in this. for instance the perfect example of long tail is typepad service. millions of bloggers, but in the end the big bucks will end up at SixApart, the company that owns typepad.

distribution channel is the head of the long tail.

By: Craig

Craig — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:24:23 +0000

Just curious…why don’t you “believe” in the long tail “concept” Chris puts forth? I agree that this book is thought-provoking–just finished my read of it.

By: Daniel Griffin

Daniel Griffin — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:00:38 +0000

I tried to search in your past posts to find your comments on “The Long Tail” but I couldn’t really find any. Could you either point me towards your thoughts or sometime make a review of it. I guess it would just be really interesting to hear what YOU have to say about it, especially if you are a non-believer. Thanks.