The Long Tail

Ameya Waghmare – 10020241006Nikhil Saronwala - 10020241103

In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes.

It got good reviews but, after a modest success, it was soon forgotten.

• Then, a decade later, Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation.

• Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again

• A ‘miss’ became a ‘hit’ suddenly!

What made that happen?Amazon.com recommendations!

It suggested that readers who liked Into Thin Air would also like Touching the Void.More sales, more algorithm-fueled recommendations, and the positive feedback loop kicked in.

• From DVDs at Netflix to music videos on YouTube to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody, a new phenomenon is found.

• People are going deep into the catalogue, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at brick-and-mortar video renting stores, book stores.

And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought…If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.

• Rhapsody's top 100,000 tracks were streamed at least once each month, the same is true for its top 200,000, top 300,000, and top 400,000.

• As fast as Rhapsody adds tracks to its library, those songs find an audience, even if it's just a few people a month, somewhere in the country!

Netflix SalesGetting more from less!

The top 500 is witnessing reduced demand but more demand from the lower ones…

• The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles.

• Yet more than half of Amazon's book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles!

• Google, for instance, makes most of its money off small advertisers

• eBay is mostly sells niche and one-off products

The Graph for Search Terms for a WebsiteWhich search term is likely to get converted into a sale?a) ‘lawyer’b) ‘experienced corporate lawyers in Patiala’

Inequality in bankingThis clearly shows opportunity for microfinance!

Data from UK’s Civil Aviation Industry

The travel to top destinations is clearly reducing

Facebook Developer User Rank

What Was Common Across All Previous Graphs?

The Long Tail

Rank

Scor

e

Lessons for Marketers

Rule 1 - Make it available

A large collection of rare books, movies, songs, documentaries, travel packages or smaller loans might give more revenues than the top ones!

Lessons for Marketers

• Rule 2 – Cut the price in half or reduce it

For a brief period, Rhapsody offered tracks at 99 cents, 79 cents, and 49 cents. Although the 49-cent tracks were only half the price of the 99-cent tracks, Rhapsody sold three times as many of them.Consumers are more likely to explore the unexplored

Lessons for Marketers

• Rule 3 – Help Me Find ItMP3.Net, was a website that provided free upload and download of music.It received music only from struggling bands, not from established artists and this made the site famous for bad music.It focused only on the tail, and not on the head. Only on the ‘miss’ and not on the ‘hits’.

• Rhapsody, on the contrary, had Britney Spears albums featured on its page and links to other albums with ‘similar’ category which led visitors go into the unexplored zone of the ‘miss’.

• A ‘hit’ is required to lead people to a ‘miss’.

References

• Wired magazine• Google KNOL• PhotoBucket• The Long Tail Blog