Who came up with the Long Tail Theory and what is the Long Tail Theory ?

The term "The Long Tail" was first coined by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, in his October 2004 article "The Long Tail" to describe business and economic models such as Amazon and Netflix. The "long tail" is actually a colloquial expression of the power laws and Paretodistributions feature of statistics.

In the past, people could only focus on important people or important things, and if these people or things are depicted in a normal distribution curve, people can only focus on the "head" of the curve, and ignore most people or things that are at the "tail" of the curve and require more effort and cost to pay attention. For example, when selling products, manufacturers focus on a small number of so-called "VIP" customers, and "have no time" to take care of the general consumer, who is in the majority in terms of numbers. In the Internet era, because the cost of attention is greatly reduced, it is possible for people to pay attention to the "tail" of the normal distribution curve at a very low cost, and the overall benefit of paying attention to the "tail" will even exceed that of the "head".

For example, a famous** is the world's largest online advertiser, it doesn't have a big client, and its revenue comes entirely from small and medium-sized enterprises that are ignored by other advertisers. Anderson believes that the Internet era is an era of focusing on the "long tail" and giving full play to the benefits of the "long tail".

The long-tail market is also known as a "niche market". The word "niche" is a transliteration of the English "niche", which translates to "niche", which means to fill in the gaps or see the seams. Philip Kotler's definition of niche in Marketing Management is:

A niche is a narrower identification of certain groups, which is a small market and whose needs are not well served, or "there is a basis for profit".

Through market segmentation, enterprises focus on a specific target market, or strictly target a market segment, or focus on a product and service, creating product and service advantages.

The long tail theory is a new theory that has emerged in the Internet era, due to the factors of cost and efficiency, when the venues and channels for the storage, circulation and display of commodities are wide enough, the cost of commodity production drops sharply so that individuals can produce it, and the cost of goods sold is sharply reduced, almost any product that previously seemed to have extremely low demand, as long as it is sold, someone will buy it. The common market share of these products with low demand and sales volume can be equal to, or even greater than, that of mainstream products.

The long-tail theory suggests that the future of business and culture does not lie at the head of the traditional demand curve that represents the "best-selling goods"; It's the long tail that represents "unpopular goods" that are often forgotten. For example, a large bookstore typically has 100,000 books, but a quarter of book sales in the Amazon web store come from books ranked after 100,000. The proportion of sales of these "unpopular" books is growing rapidly, and it is estimated that they will account for half of the entire book market in the future.

This means that when consumers are faced with unlimited choices, there have been major changes in what they really want and the channels they want to obtain, and a new set of business models has also emerged. In short, the unpopular products involved in the long tail cover the needs of almost more people, and when there is a demand, more people will be aware of this need, so that the unpopular is no longer unpopular.

<>1. The long-tail theory is a new theory emerging in the Internet age, proposed by Chris Anderson, an American;

2. The long-tail theory refers to the fact that as long as the storage and circulation channels of products are large enough, the market share occupied by products with low demand or poor sales can be comparable or even greater than the market share occupied by a few hot-selling products, that is, many small markets converge into market energy that can match the mainstream;

3. People often think that mainstream and best-selling goods have room for development and more value. The long-tail theory is to subvert this bias, conduct in-depth market mining, and extend the business tentacles all the way to the depths of consumer demand.

1. The long-tail theory refers to the fact that as long as the storage and circulation channels of products are large enough, the market share occupied by products with low demand or poor sales can be comparable or even greater than the market share occupied by a few hot-selling products, that is, many small markets converge into market energy that can match the mainstream.

2. In other words, the sales volume of the enterprise does not lie in the head of the traditional demand curve that represents the "best-selling goods", but the long tail that represents the "unpopular goods" that are often forgotten.