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March 18, 2007
The long tail of Reeves Library
In his October 2004 WIRED magazine article The Long Tail, Chris Anderson describes statistical distributions as they relate to supply and demand. Sure, everybody knows there are far more "misses" than "hits", and most people have at least a general sense of the 80 / 20 rule. However, what may come as a surprise to some is that the aggregate demand for the "misses" often outpaces demand for the "hits". This is the long tail.
You can find a long tail almost anywhere you look. Anderson offers this bookstore example:
Take books: 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. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are.
The long tail is here at Reeves Library too. Click the graphic for a larger view (Ctrl + click if you have a pop-up blocker).
Posted by AnthonyMcMullen at March 18, 2007 6:29 PM