November 10: Anderson, Chapter 12 to end

The Future of the Long Tail was the topic for this week. Anderson starts off by showing how no one really knew that television would end up the way it is today. If you really look into it, sometimes I wonder if television is really considered tv at all. We watch movies, play games, and n the case of Dr. Kris we also use the box solely for Netflix to avoid commercials and standard programming that starts at a specific time and day. Personally, and a little off topic, I still love to come home on a wednesday and watch Law and Order: SVU...even to the point where I will decide not to go out if it conflicts with my law and order time.

I was shocked to read that there is actually 31 million hours of original television produced each year. This leads me to our class discussion on whether all or most of tv is basically garbage. I beg to differ, but ultimately it is a form of an escape for me. I cannot yell when my boss makes strange decisions, but I can watch my favorite actors do it on tv. I secretly applaud them while wishing I could do the same.

Back to the discussion of the Long Tail. Chapter 13 delves into eBay and how it is similar in performance to stores like Walmart, but ow it sales is entirely Long Tail. You can find pretty much anything on Ebay and sell pretty much anything as well. For example, I once operated a pretty successful ebay business and sold a book signed by Barack Obama for $2000..needless to say it was a very happy christmas that year. The future of Long Tail, as Anderson describes with various businesses, is that it appears to be taking over traditional media and ways of buying products. While I still believe we will have a need for a grocery store and movie theater, the necessity to go there instead of ordering it online will be less of a concern. I can't really remember the last time I bought something I truly loved from a department store...but I do remember buying great nostalgic dvds of old shows from a bargain online store. Things that we really consume everyday will likely still be a part of our process, but those items that we can wait for or entertainment that is available instantaneously is something that I believe is not a dying trend. The internet is growing faster than we can keep up and everyone is ultimately realizing it. I could be more influencial on the internet than in a boardroom full of stock holders and investors.

Anderson does list two ways to make a successful Long Tail Busines:

1. Make everything available

2. Help me find it. (p. 217)

He suggests that we should let the customers do the work. In the case of Ebay, they are just a platform for others to build their products, stores, and gain mounds of profit. They take a small percentage of the profits you gain and then host your item for a specific time until it sells. They even offer advice on how to sell i fast and for the best results in profits. Anderson also suggests that we think Niche... in the business world, we can find 20 different brands of socks at walmart. However, there are a few customers who just want green and black socks with pokadots on them...and where can they find them but online. This is the future of Long Tail. Because I work in the car industry, my suggestion would always be to have your products available online. In internet sales, my boss always says that we are no longer a few feet from our competitors, we are a mere piece of a centimeter on the internet. Our competitor is only a click away, so we have to build value in the price and features of what we sell online. The future of long tail to me means that I will definitely have a job in the future if I choose to hit the ground running in the realm of internet sales.