The Short Tail: Mobile Content Deck

I’ll expound on my theory over the next few days..the long tail meme, developed by Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, has certainly become part of everyday lexicon, at least in the music and media industry. At the two back-to-back music conferences in NYC this week, the phrase was whipped out every hour or so…
On the other side, as any operator, aggregator or mobile content provider will tell you, the opposite forces are in work on the mobile. The deck, as the industry terminology goes (basically the interface on your mobile service through which you enter these content services), has a very limited inventory, and whatever ends up on the deck sells in bucketloads. Those which do not make it, do not. At all.
The ringtones market is a perfect example of that….as Thomas Ryan, the new head of mobile at EMI Music said at the Billboard Music & Money conference today, if you think that the music industry is a hits business, then ringtones is an even more concentrated version of hits business.
Of course, the challenge for the industry is to develop services and tools which go beyond the short tail…some say recommendation services are that magic tool. Others say the syncing of mobile and PC, once it becomes easier and frankly, feasible, will be that catalyst. Remains to be seen…

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