The Long Tail 290
Chris Anderson writes "I'm the editor of Wired Magazine and if you'll forgive the autohornblowing, I think you'll be interested in my piece in our latest issue. It argues, with a lot of new data, that the entertainment industry is shifting from an era of hit-driven economics to one of niche-driven economics. Content that was once relegated to the fringe, beneath the threshold of commercial viability, is now increasingly able to find a market in distributed audiences, marking a shift towards the previously-neglected Long Tail of the demand curve."
More Democratic Market (Score:5, Interesting)
A notable exception was Red Dwarf, which many people recommended as the next Hitchhikers, as good as Hitchhikers, etc. I found the two books to be like they said, but perhaps not as they intended, I found Red Dwarf to be very derivative and fairly juvenile, as if someone really loved a book so much that they wrote in a similar setting (sci-fi in this case.) I didn't pursue it past the two books I was given, it was a bit of a downer, too as the authors had a small group of characters to play with after killing off the entire human race and finding bugger all in space.
I've had satellite radio for two years now and can tell honestly say I don't listen to current pop anymore, as I've found swing and standards to be awesome music, it's a bit puzzling how music evolved from that to Britney Spears, et al, but as The Long Tail indicates, we're leaving a top-down dictation of our musical tastes and finding our own way, whether in the past or in the present but other genres than commercial radio wants us to hear (and buy.)
Years ago I moved to Santa Cruz, which has the Nickelodeon and Del Mar [thenick.com] theaters. I've found about 3/4 of the films I watch are there rather than the big hollywood multiplex (Santa Cruz 9) down the street. I'm more surprised and intrigued by what I see on those screens (which included Touching The Void) than the shiney, candy-like offerings from down south. I can't say I'd have had the same choice in the city I moved from, where no such independent cinemas existed, shy of driving 125 miles to the Maple Theater in Troy, MI.
The long tail is already here (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in college I was a record collector. I would spend hours upon hours trolling every used record store in the Bay Area looking for obscure items on my 'must have' list. Whenever I visited a new city, I would always try to hit some used stores, regardless of the weather or the character of the neighborhoods they may be located in. I also spent nearly as much time in used book stores looking for anything that struck me as interesting at the time. Over the course of the years and several cross country moves I've shed most of the books and all of the vinyl. My cd collection has plummeted from several thousand down to a few hundred. And yet I now have access to more literature and music than ever.
I've been using iTunes for over a year now, and I've bought more music in the past 6 months through iTunes than in the entire 3 years prior to the release of iTunes. I don't spend much time listening to whatever is on the top 40 charts. Most of the artists I like live in the long tail. They are often even names you might know, but they are not chart toppers. They won't go platinum, but they'll still make money. I worked at a used CD store in Colorado for a while, and the owner there understood the long tail even though he didn't understand it as such. When people were selling us CDs he would just look at the titles and be able to tell you what it was worth without even looking it up on the computer. Here's a tip for you: you can always get top dollar for a Frank Zappa CD.
Already posted on my blog, but what the hell.
Primer (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh yeah, it's being released in Dallas and New York on Friday. More cities to follow.
only two stories (Score:1, Interesting)
there are only two stories:
hero goes on a journey
a stranger comes to town
all the rest is hornblowing
and markets
With due respect... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's only 20 spots on the best seller list. There are generally more than 20 good books that have come out recently. Quite a lot of really ambitious, deserving stuff is out there, that gets ignored in favor of "what everyone else is reading." You see similar trends in music, movies, etc.
Sure, there are a few critics who went down the road less traveled, found something new, and held it up and said "hey! this is pretty good." And people listened. But has that really created a wider market?
Sure Into Thin Air did well. And now that author's other book is doing well. Great. So, name me one author (or one book you've read) on Skydiving. Mountain biking. White water rafting. You say "well, there aren't any." My point is "how would you know?"
The net here, is that we've still got popularity that's driven by what's getting recommended as "the new hot thing." And, like lemmings, people flock to it. The mainstream has fairly limited bandwidth.
If nothing else, this is proof that there are a lot of reasonably well-written books out there, that a lot of people might enjoy, and picking one at random and giving it the star treatment can make it a success.
My favorite experiment on this--Stephen King (in his preface to "the Bachman Books," a collection of works he pubslihed under the alias "Richard Bachman." These were published without fanfare, under a name no one knew. About as well written as any of his other books, just less well known. They didn't do poorly per se--they did all right, but nothing like his "Stephen King" books. And, once he was unmasked and people knew he had written them, all of a sudden they turned into MUCH bigger sellers....
It's still a question of marketing hype.
Interesting article (Score:5, Interesting)
I want the article to be right, but it seems more like a hope than any evidence. Amazon, Netflix, etc are selling/renting a lot of material that traditional stores don't stock, but it doesn't seem like it's indicating any great shift.
Amazon was most dramatic as far as how far much of their sales are of items not stocked at normal book stores. But that just makes sense; if I can buy the book at a brick and morter store I will because then I get a chance to see it, read a bit of it and be sure I like it. Once I've done all that, I don't want to wait a few days to get it from amazon just to save a few percent, I want it right away, so I'll buy it at the store. If I can't find the book in normal stores, then I'll look at amazon.
Good time for Canadian Movie Makers (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm Maybe it's time to get the Panasonic 24 fps DV cam
More Wired pseudo-science (Score:3, Interesting)
And I don't like the style- it comes off as scientific (Ohhh! It even has GRAPHS! That must be science!) but really is just a bunch of gross generalizations. This kind of crap is what keeps me away from wired.
Though I do appreciate the mention of MP3.com as a long-tail only failure, there are significant issues with respect to business plan specifics that are completely glossed over yet are central to the success Anderson talks about. If Touching the Void weren't reprinted with a vengence, then the resurge wouldn't even exist.
Also, lets talk about the major underpining of Netflix that allows it to "over throw the tyrrany of space"- the US postal system. If Netflix couldn't send the disks cheap enough, fast enough, or had more broken DVDs than they do, they would be out of business.
In short, this whole article reminds me of a DotCom pitch- full of colorful and modern-styled graphics, long on exposition, but with holes.
demographics and buying habits (Score:5, Interesting)
If people stop buying what the stars are wearing/using and don't respond to peer pressure, then buyers will fragment and the long tail will rise in importance.
A completely digital product has great agility. (Score:3, Interesting)
Very interesting article (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Primer (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's a niche movie, it'll probably be on the local indie screen soon.
I hope it's better than some of the stuff I've heard about being good, which wasn't, i.e. Young Einstein and Blair Witch.
Films I did love watching were:
Triplets of Bellville
Run Lola Run
Monsoon Wedding
Shaolin Soccer
Touching the Void
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
All of which were at the local indie theaters. I'm hard pressed to think of anything I've seen at the main theaters in the past 5 years that could hold a candle to any of these.
Here's self-promotion back at you (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus Wired became the "Cosmopolitan" of the internet revolution, with the sole difference that the faces on the cover are ugly.
I quickly droped my subscription and none of my tech friends read it either. In fact I can't recall when was the last time I saw an issue of the magazine.
I Am Not Being Shifted, I Am Being Forced (Score:5, Interesting)
"So what?" you might ask. Well, the problem here is that there appears to be only so many formulas that main stream Hollywood can produce. So, all that sensory overload is starting to become the same thing over and over again. How many firefighter movies do we need? Obviously one more since Ladder 49 found its way in theatres. And, if you have seen it, you will find (besides the way it ends) that it lacks originality in almost every facet of its existence. Same thing with Shark Tale. Get down to it, its just a gangster movie with a kids front put on it. I am not the only one who has noticed this, either. Most in my group feel that most every movie formula has been done to death by the movie industries. Look at the movie Taxi coming out soon. Go and rent the likes of National Security or Lethal Weapon and you will see basically the same formula.
This is where the indie industry is coming to the rescue with their niche titles. Its why your Napolean Dynamites are doing so well while main stream stuff is struggling to stay in theatres for any length of time. Its why Donnie Darko has such an underground following where as Armegeddon is considered loud crap by many.
This, of course, extends down to the rental businees. People are hungry for entertainment and these niche titles fit that bill to a tee. I, for one, am glad we have a Netflix that is able to provide the alternatives to the Grade A blockbuster crap from mainstream studios. Otherwise, I think I would have given up on the movie industry a long time ago.
The "long tail" as it applies to products. (Score:5, Interesting)
With today's technology, it is possible to profitably release a product that looks like it came from a "big player" in the industry, but is manufactured in batches of a few hundred, as orders permit. This gives us tremendous flexibility to create and customize new products based upon a central core.
My point? Its not just music and publishing that are being morphed by technology. Its also software -- think of all the shareware and open source projects that have dramatically changed the landscape of the software industry.
Makes sense. (Score:4, Interesting)
Cable comes along and adds a few more channels, at a lower distribution cost. Some local unaffiliated stations become "superstations" (TBS, USA I think, WGN), and a few niche players develop (most notably MTV, VH1, CMT, and eventually TLC, Discovery, etc). But remember the old cable boxes? They had a cap of about 36 channels, so there was no room for diversification, only replacement of one interest with another.
Cable began to broaden as TV sets came cable-ready, adding broader interests again, but the floodgates have really opened with the advent of digital cable and satellite. Now, the incremental distribution cost of a channel is marginal. Channels number in the hundreds, and more unusual interests can now be explored - think Discovery Health, VH1 Classic, TechTV, Game Show Network, etc. The distributers are still limited, but those limitations continue to fall as cable providers find ways to squeeze more bandwidth out of their lines and satellite adds capacity in the sky through new satellites and better (or just more) compression. The new limits are becoming simply the ability of the channel to remain profitable, and provide their channel at a price the dish and cable services find profitable as well. Content is getting cheaper as media has become near omnipresent. We have channels on local Atlanta cable - Falconsvision and Comcast Sports South. Both capitalize almost entirely on previously recorded and produced content, repackaged. By aggregating existing content, they're able to provide something that distinguishes them from the satellite providers, and is easily a profitable endeavor.
I see this trend stalling for a while as increased capacity is used for distribution of the same content in higher resolution (HD). This pause may be quite drawn out, depending on when the consumer decides that the image is "good enough". (There is little demand, for example, for higher resolution digital audio. I don't think 1080i is the end of the upgrade cycle for video.) Alternately, a new distribution channel (easy to use internet-based channel surfing) may accelerate this growth, but this seems unlikely for quite some time - with ~15 Megabit/s plus bandwidth requirements for compressed HDTV, it will be a while before the average home is able to receive content at a resolution that can compare to current TV technology. More hindering is the lack of a broadcast mechanism for the internet (one source, unlimited listeners within a certain range). A PC with gigabit ethernet would only allow 66 HD concurrent viewers, provided the hardware could keep up. This tech needs to cheaply scale to hundreds of thousands to become practical.
Wrong Wired. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, More Fragmented Market (Score:1, Interesting)
Hence, Hollywood, which produces most of the films, must target a fragmented audience. Each film must be profitable on a tiny percentage of the viewing audience. By definition, such films are niche films
Consider "Star Trek". When it first aired, its ratings were considered terrible, but those same ratings would be considered a success today.
The negative side of niche films is that they divide the culture of the nation. In the golden age of TV, with only 3 TV networks, a huge percentage of the population shared the same TV experience by virtue of watching the same TV programs. Now, with so many TV networks and so many films, where is the binding glue for a common culture?
What is remarkable is that FOX news regularly beats the competition in this fragmented market, besting ABC, CBS, and NBC. Perhaps, there is something to this "No Spin" thing.
application to venture capital? (Score:1, Interesting)
Would any professional VCs mind commenting on their investment model? Might there be a place for VCs who invest on the basis of multiple successful niche companies, rather than looking for the blockbuster hit?
Agree with the idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been doing this in my professional life, too. I'm a developer of Meridian 59 [meridian59.com], a classic online RPG. The game focuses a lot on player vs. player (PvP) combat, with the advantage of having a long time to develop a very balanced system. We've targeted the game to the niche that is interested in this type of game, and we make enough money to get by.
I think we'll see another large, sustainable boom once people realize that servicing a niche can be very profitable.
Have fun,
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm not convinced... (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It is now easier and cheaper to reach your audience across the globe. In the past, it might not have been profitable to create a $1M movie about, say, gay cowboys eating pudding (ref. Southpark) and sell it to the US niche market. These days however it's not that much harder to reach the same niche market on other continents. In other words, the 'tail' has grown considerably fatter without much extra cost.
2) You no longer have to rely on economies of scale to sell your product at an affordable price and still make a profit. If you make a record for $500, you can sell 50 of them for just $15 and still make a profit. The old model of music distribution did now allow for such small production runs. In other words: selling to a small 'tail' can be profitable because the overhead and startup costs have become much lower.
The good news for us consumers is that we no longer have to rely on the selection of prefab rubbish fed to us by the record companies, who rely on economies of scale. Today, the tiniest band in New Zealand can sell a single record to a customer in the UK and still make money on it (they won't recoup their cost on that one record, but the cost of selling it can be lower than their reasonable asking price). Compared to 10 years ago, there is a lot more content for us to enjoy, and it is easier for us to find it.
Why I like Wired (Score:4, Interesting)
Reasons:
Is there some stuff that I'd like to see? Sure. I wish the articles were longer, and that there were more of them. I wish that the number of graphics-intensive, full-page 2-paragrpah articles was a little smaller. Apart from that, I wouldn't change anything.
As far as the tail goes, we have more choices because our larger retailers (online and otherwise) are able to make so many more diverse choices in terms of what they want to (and can) sell. The supermarket is a good example. As years went by and people learned more about regional cuisine, and fresh/organic vegetables, retailers became pressured to supply these items because they were losing business to these little niche shops and mom&pop veggie-fruit stands. When organic veggies first showed up in my town (15 years ago), you just didn't have enough of them being grown to allow a major grocery to buy the stuff. As production of organics rose in volume, they became part of the ordinary offering. In dense urban areas (London, Paris, NYC), the range of choices was always wide and varied because of the diversity of the population was similarly wide and varied. I see the diversity of today's channels of information (cable, the net, books, papers, magazines) as spreading demand out along the tail. The choices were always there, it's just that people are more likely to know about them, and getting exactly what one wants is easier in the age of fedex.
Re:More Wired pseudo-science (Score:1, Interesting)
Hey, it's Wired, not the Harvard Business School. :-)
Yeah, but 25 years ago this wouldn't have happened, because there wasn't one big retailer that could recommend Void to everyone who bought Into Thin Air. And there was no way to capture the sales data on one obscure backlist title well enough to spot the trend. (Sure, if in this case Void's publisher had been too clueless to notice the surge in sales, nothing would have happened, but they did, and they sold a bunch of books, so your point is...?) But they can, and they do, and if the internet didn't exist, we'd all be getting more work done, instead of posting on Slashdot. Again, your point...?Re: I Am Not Being Shifted, I Am Being Forced (Score:3, Interesting)
And to some extent, that's a fair point. Of course, that's assuming that they promote the less formulaic stuff as hard, which I'm not sure they do. But the unusual films tend to get pigeonholed as 'art house' or whatever, and don't get as popular. Look at something fascinating and original like Being John Malkovich, or Cube, or even The Truman Show (though that did rather well I think), or... well, you can probably think of some more.
I guess it's a chicken and egg situation. As long as most people go and see formulaic dross, that's what they'll get. And they'll have trouble finding anything else. So that's what they'll get in the habit of seeing. Rinse and repeat.
My last comment was about the X-Prize, and I find myself saying exactly the same thing here: people need to take risks. The execs need to move out of their comfort-and-predictable-profits zone. Do you think Kubrick worried about approval ratings when he made 2001? Did Kurosawa get a committee to write The Seven Samurai? Did Tarantino base Reservoir Dogs on market research and focus groups? Of course not. They just tried to create something good; the success followed from that. The movie industry would be in a better state if they focused on the good rather than the comfortable.