The Long Tail
by Chris Anderson · first published 2006
23% recommend63% neutral13% critical
Why HN recommends it
Explains how online retail lets niche products collectively rival hits, with clear business implications; useful for entrepreneurs, marketers and product people.
Common criticism: Some call the core theory dated or its data shaky
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The New York Times bestseller that introduced the business world to a future that’s already here—now in a new edition with a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue.Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book of the YearIn the most important business book since The Tipping Point, Chris Anderson shows how the future of commerce and culture isn’t in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as misses—the endlessly long tail of that same curve.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…to Great Start Your Own Business (I knew basically nothing about small business before I started, and it's a good intro) Crossing the Chasm (good so far, haven't finished) Technology/Culture: The Long Tail The World is Flat Productivity/People: Getting Things Done Getting to Yes How to Win Friends and Influence People
on “Startup founders, what books did you find most helpful?” ↗1."The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson 2."Super Crunchers" by Ian Ayres 3."Six Great Scientists" by J.G Crowther 4."The Meaning of It All" by Richard Feynman 5."Dealers of Lightning"(The story of XEROX Parc) by Michael Hiltzik…
on “Ask YC: Road trip. Which audio books would you recommend?” ↗…Language, Peopleware, Made to stick, Web Standards Solutions, Designing Interactions, The Pragmatic Programmer, The Mythical Man-Month, Oh, the Places You'll Go! Other good reads: Blink, Tipping Point, Long Tail, Freakonomics
on “Ask YC (and PG): What books do you have on your bookshelf? ” ↗- The Lean Startup, by Eric Rives - The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson - The Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim - On the shortness of life, by Seneca - 1984, by George Orwell
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗…Programming - Raymond Godel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter Metamagical Themas - Hofstadter Joel on Software - Spolsky Code Complete - McConneli The Mythical Man-Month - Brooks No Silver Bullet - Brooks The Long Tail - Anderson The Art of the Start - Kawasaki
on “ASK HN: Hacker Bibles” ↗Not many "classics" on a "new paradigm" :) Chris Anderson is writing a book called "Free". You should read his blog, made for another good book "The Long Tail" http://thelongtail.com/ Lawrence Lessig and the whole creative commons movement have good thoughts. Here is a free book of his: http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ and here is an amazon link, but…
on “Better than free” ↗I just finished "The Long Tail". A good point Anderson brings up is that more often than not, eBay has no idea what its users are selling. People don't use standard SKUs, etc. This means they can't build a real recommendation engine,…
on “eBay's Chaos Theory” ↗Agree on Four Steps and Getting Real, also check out: Purple Cow and The Dip by Seth Godin The Long Tail and Free by Anderson
on “Ask HN: I want to start a web company what books should I read?” ↗…I found that it didn't work for all books (it works for 'single-idea' books, which I call 'branch books'; it doesn't work as well for 'map of ideas' books, which I call 'tree books'.) For example, The Long Tail is the an example of a branch book, and Thinking: Fast and Slow is an example of a tree book. (I've written a longer post about the categories here: https://commoncog.com/blog/the-3-kinds-of-non-fiction-book/)…
on “Nancy Pearl’s Rule of 50 for dropping a bad book” ↗The long tail was absolutely about creators of all kinds making more money. That was the sales pitch of this book, which - so far as I know - made the phrase popular. https://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Future-Business-Selling/dp/...…
on “Where Did the Long Tail Go?” ↗…that Jeff is already on the right track in 1997 (three years after the introduction of NCSA Mosaic). While his words seem obvious now 15+ years later - in 1997 - he was way ahead of his time. The book "Long Tail" by Chris Anderson was published in 2006 (9 years later). Watch the baby in the background escape from its mother at 2:16 and run towards the taping :) The mother came rushing through the frame to get…
on “Jeff Bezos 1997 Interview [YouTube]” ↗…believe 3000) dedicated fans to make something like a blog. And around 2010 (+- 5) there was a Wired, I believe, article that did show that also the most popular things are more concentrated, while the Long Tail eats the former successful mid-range. If anybody has references, the first could be Chris Anderson's The long tail, but I think that thesis was around earlier. The second I didn't find anything.
on “Pop culture has become an oligopoly (2022)” ↗…company, indie developers (especially the ones in Software) are smaller and thus could focus on just the right content creators, ie rely on marketing to boost sales. This phenomenon isn't new. The book The Long Tail posited (way back) that even niche software could make millions now that the Internet had made it cheaper to reach just the right audience. Teenagers, Zach Yadegari (calai.app) and Blake Anderson (apex.inc),…
on “Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?” ↗I can't believe Chris Anderson is still pimping "The Long Tail." (His latest book: "The Longer Tail.") As his website mentions, his initial "The Long Tail" Wired article came out in 2004. OK, we get the concept. Please come up with some new material. Perhaps the…
on “ Excellent HBR piece challenging the Long Tail” ↗"In a seminal 2004 essay in Wired titled "The Long Tail," journalist Chris Anderson argued that digital culture would help niche music, books, and movies thrive. With fewer gatekeepers and more avenues to find likeminded fans, people would be more likely to…
on “Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?” ↗