27A) Reading Reflection 2

“The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” by Chris Anderson

1.      The book was published in 2006, and it talks about how the market has been changing in the last few decades. It used to be a market of “hits”, where everything was about mass production of “successful” products -selling tons of just a few products. Mr. Anderson describes in the book how the introduction of new technologies has made possible to reduce the cost of inventory and shelf, the latter to almost zero. He explains why the success of companies like Amazon, eBay, Rhapsody, Netflix, etc. and how they presented what would be the new tendencies in the market -selling less of more. Also, the author describes what are the elements that have contributed to this evolution: democratization if production, democratization of distribution, connection between supply and demand.

2.      I feel like this book is an extension to what we learn in class. In class we learn the basic ideas of how understand the market forces, how to find an unmet need, and how to deliver a solution. With this book, I have been able to appreciate a new perspective of the market, looking from a more analytical and statistical point of view. Moreover, it taught me how the behavior of customers has changed, mostly due to the rise of the internet, and how it is more evenly distributed among the different good offerings.

3.      I think that probably a case study would be a nice way to put in practice the knowledge acquired after reading the book. The author mentions many times examples of companies that have been part of this revolution. I suggest using one of them, or maybe find a “new” company that uses a similar approach and perform a case study of that business about it has impacted the market.

4.      Actually the ‘aha’ moment came from the very beginning of the book. I was impressed about the topic the book was presenting, I didn’t think about how the market now a days has a “long tail” (that is how it is called when there are events, even a few, further out the tail of the distribution curve). Plus, I was kind of in shock when the Chris Anderson disregards the famous 80/20 rule and explains how it is not as common in today’s environment.