The Long Tail

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Well I think too many people took 10000-hour-Genius thing too seriously. Is that means marketers start telling truth (Malcolm Gladwell is a marketer. right?)?

Anyway I am little confused with maths done here.

60 hours a week= 5 days a week * 12 hours a day

How many Oofus work 12 hours a day continuesly for years? Is it feasible? (Unless your are a newly minted MBA working as investment banker diging for next financial engineering tool)

Ok lets assume we can do it.

3000 hour / 60 hour s week =50 weeks.

We have 52 weeks in a year.Assuming 6 days a week we have (4 sunday a month *12 month)/7 = 7 weeks

If we amke a more realistic 5 days a week we have 14 weeks in weekends.

Apart from this we have aother many holidays and i can easly count one more week holiday for all

so in total we have 15 non working weekend. This calculation leave us 52-15= 37 working weekends not 50.

I think you trying too hard to fit your do-new-thing-every=three-year theory in 10000-hour-genius crap or am I missing someting ?

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I have always believed a person should never stop learning, exploring, doing new things. My life has always been a quest it seems - and I'm totally happy with that. We live in a wonderful age. We have more research tools and knowledge at our fingertips than ever. We can reach other people in many ways.

I don't know if there is a cycle that makes any sense, but I know that continuing to learn from new perspectives is part of critical thinking. I often think our education system misses the mark by teaching to test - instead of teaching to learn. Innovation and change are moving too fast for education to keep up. But give a person the tools to research and analyze what they find and they will keep learning the rest of their lives. And just to put one more log on the fire, recent labor statistics show that at least in technology, very few people remain with the same employer more than 3 years.

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Yes, do something different regularly -- I would say every two years rather than longer.

But the relation to expertise is ill-founded. The research on expert performance (eg.: 'The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance' Ericsson, Krampe, Tesch-Romer) is quite particular about how those 10000 hours are spent: it is as *effortful/deliberate* practice, and it is limited to about 4 hours a day (and there are other considerations too).

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You know, I think that's been the case with me as well. Now that I am also blogging passionately about online communities and heavily involved in social media platforms, I feel as though I need to do something new every 6 months. And now that I've written that I think that perhaps this something new every six months is really something "a little different." How does this translate to the much faster medium where we all are striving to be relevant, make a difference and maybe even work a plan B in the midst of this insane economy?

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I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with this very good post. This may be beacause of the specific nature of business sector i work in, IT systems and services, and additionaly the nature of my role as Chief Technology Officer.

My disagreement with changing jobs at three years is obvious, and maybe wrong, but with the ever increasing depth of technology areas we need to make sure that we have real expertise in the selected areas. This clearly leads towards allowing people to develop their career within their selected area of technology.

My agreeement is more complex to explain; firstly we are at risk that we have fewer and fewer people with enough abilities across most technologies to understand large solutions that employ an increasingly number of technology areas, so in this case the arguement for job rotation works.

Secondly given the speed that technology is changing there is an arguement that keeping people in 'fixed' roles and technologies means that they will produce out dated solutions.

My personal conclusion is probably that the ratio between the two groups is moving towards favouring the arguement to switch people at three years, but certainly not to switch everyone!

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Hi Chris,

Your post was really thought-provoking, and the minute I read it I contrasted it to Lawrence Lessig's recent(ish) decision, after 10 years of working on the free culture movement, to switch focus to investigating and fighting corruption. These two seemed at odds somewhat, and so I decided to write up a post discussing it: http://tropophilia.com/2008/12/17/impatient-experts-deciding-when-or-if-to-try-something-new/.

I know (and note in the post) that your advice was given with only the best intentions, but I wonder if you'll agree that to members of my generation (20-somethings) the concern isn't whether we'll be inclined to do something new every few years, but whether we'll be inclined to toil at something long enough -- and perhaps beyond the point of achieving mastery -- in order to give back, lead, and do good in the world.

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@Jimmy: D'oh! I meant a bit "after" your third year, not "into". Fixed.

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Hi Chris, Well said. Two thoughts. 1. I think the attraction to the head or Star is a function of efficiency. In a world of increasing content overload our limited attention is grabbed by those we trust. The Wisdom of Crowds tends to cause us to trust the well known reliable sources or best selling authors for example. This is why endorsements by other best selling authors helps a book rise to the top. 2. That said the LongTail is a valuable breeding ground for soon to be stars. If not for the long tail many great authors would not survive long enough to be discovered or as Gladwell says to reach a tipping point. Many books that are ultimately in the head start out in obscurity. Before the internet long tail many great books went out of print before they gained momentum. To your second point of microcelebrities this is a valuable opportunity for the best idea to survive long enough to win. Pre internet for example it took Chairman Peter (Peter Drucker) 50 years to become a star. It took Stephen Covey 20 years pre internet. Malcolm Gladwell did it in less than 5. The long tail is a very valuable asset.

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You shouldn't limit yourself to Hollywood.

This is the top ten of movie production for 2003 by country, from Film Digest (July 2003). I reckon Hollywood's lead has further diminshed since then, but I couldn't find the data.

1. India- 1200
2. US- 543
3. Japan- 293
4. France- 200
5. Spain- 137
6. Italy- 130
7. Germany- 116
8. China- 100
9. Philippines-97
10. Hong Kong- 92

This means Hollywood represents roughly 22% of the top ten world movies producers - and there are many more. Now, I remember from the discussion on the Canadian movie Chris cited in his book that US theaters are pretty "nationalistic" in their choices, projecting almost only Howllywood movies.

Hollywood movies seem to be, or are perceived to be (in snobby Europe at least ;)), pretty self-similar. Lots of special effects, paper thin plot, explosions, firearms, explosions, explosions.

Which is good by me, I like that kind of movie, it's very relaxing. European movie studios stay away from that niche tho, probably because Americans or so good at it, or maybe because they don't have enough money and stuff to blow up.

For example, there's no European movie I know of that was taken from a comic.

So I see much more variety in movies around me as the internet gives me even more access to international productions(even tho American action movies still top the box office).

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This is the first analysis I've read that really explains what's been going on in Hollywood over the last decade.

In this era of unprecedented choice, Hollywood films have arguably become less diverse than at any time in history. If you look at the films that were released as recently as ten years ago, it's clear there's been a giant contraction of diversity and originality. Sequels have always been popular in Hollywood, but it's become almost impossible for a film that's not a sequel (or otherwise built on a well-known brand) to do much business. Even the rare indie hits ("Little Miss Sunshine" and "Juno") are so few and far between that the specialty film business has become all but unsustainable. Artistically ambitious films are now basically a form of corporate welfare solely justified by the chance of winning an Oscar.

Schimdt's comments offer an explanation for why this is happening. Ironically, the diversity of the internet has turned Hollywood into an increasingly efficient blockbuster factory.

It's true that it's not all about money -- but film can only be created with at least some money. Even though digital technology is making film cheaper to produce, and short online videos are increasingly popular, there's a big chasm between Hollywood blockbusters and YouTube. I fear that many of the most original and creative films of our era simply aren't being made because they fall into this increasingly vast chasm.

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I agree with Morten 100%. I find it quite surprising that Schmidt did not at least concede how much Google make from the tail. Am I wrong to think that MOST of their money would be in the tail? If Google was to only book ads for Fortune 1000 companies, that would be a big change in the number of sponsored links I see per week!

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Also, we need to keep in mind that technology plays a critical role, especially for the leaders monetizing on the head-end of the power curve: the sheer economies of scale, and the lessons learned in building the web scale technology platform (whether it is Google's search platform with their home-brew GFS, BigTable, Google Apps etc or Amazon's eCommerce infrastructure for smaller merchants, EC2/S3 service) puts them in a sweet spot: not only do they enjoy the revenue side of the power curve, they are also enabling hundreds if not thousands of developers and smaller players to ride on THEIR platform, but on the Long-tail...making money on tons of smaller players riding the long-tail.

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Google wags the dog.

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Great analysis, Chris! Have not yet followed the discussion, but wanted to rush in and say, that I think your theory is rock solid. In fact, I believe Schmidt's analysis is flawed.

Check out the "long tail" of search as recently examined : http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/2008/11/sizing_up_the_long_tail_of_sea.html

Now after reading that article I can't see that Schmidts claim to "earn most of the money in the head" has any credibility. Google, as one of the first truly global aggregators of information, has, if any company, earned their billions in the tail.

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The big problem I see with your theory is that you assume that 100, 1000, or 10,000 search sites besides Google have an equal chance of being accessed/discovered. Once a dominant player or group of players emerges it naturally lays claim to a majority of the potential customers. Once this segregation has begun the influence of popularity leads to the creation of credibility. At this point the others beyond the first few leaders cease to be a factor.

I just don't see the long tail as an enduring trend. It only has a finite existence until a significant differentiator creates a group that becomes popular which leads to the creation of credibility.

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Finally some long tail discussion that I can agree with!

If the old economy was a "regular body" that grew a "long tail" then this is the "beautiful face".

We think of celebrity as a negative because our current economic "body" has very average faces, but a super celebrity could (and I'd argue will be) be the world's best artist, a super philanthropist, most interesting businessperson, an unbelievable singer, etc... That is, if superlative content made money.

The long tail deals with increased quantity, the beautiful face deals with increased quality! I've been writing about this for a long time at whiteg.com. The ramifications--economic, social, cultural, and political--are incredible.

The future is more of everything AND better of everything. And the money will be where it's always been--in the increases in quality, not in the proliferation of quantity. Put it this way--those interested in higher quality will be artists, entrepreneurs, designers, poets, muses, etc. Those interested in greater quantity will be spreadsheet jockeys, warehouse managers, marketing guys and shipping greats. Long tail or beautiful face--take your pick.

To the guy who asked about physics--there are many strong parallels.

Essentially, the "regular body" is Newtonian physics, slow and inefficient, the long tail is quantum physics, much faster and more efficient but not without problems. The beautiful face, then, is the new physics surrounding dark energy, which replaced quantum physics as our most complete description of reality when it was discovered in 1998. The universe is estimated by scientists to be at least 96% dark energy. (Which gives you a good indication of how profitable its economic systems will be in relation to energy, which is what our current economy is based on).

In physical terms, the "body" is our tangible body, the "tail" is our intangible brain (which makes distribution and production--quantity--easy), and the face is our untangible soul (the exploration of which makes quality easy). There are many parallels and conclusions to be gained from this--it's investigated in a much more comprehensive fashion at my web site, mentioned above.

The basics go like this: before 1900 the world, our economy and our physics, were tangible, inefficient and slow. During this time intangible reason was not valued at market rates--in fact it was often violently suppressed. About 1% of the population before 1900 was "free" and war and slavery were commonplace. The world GDP grew at less than .3% a year.

Around 1900 reason began to be valued by the market and the intangible era was born. Our economy, politics and social systems were ordered around reason and became much more efficient. Just 100 years after the introduction of these systems, half the planet is free and self-sufficient. The world GDP grows at an average rate of 3% a year (a remarkable 10 fold increase).

(It's also interesting to note that slavery, colonialism, raw sewage, rampant disease and high infant mortality rates--the most intractable problems of the pre-1900 intangible era--were only solved by the introduction of new more efficient intangible systems. These problems after festering unaltered for tens of thousands of years were obliterated in under 100--an historical blink of the eye--with the introduction of a new paradigm.)

The intangible systems we currently employ are better than tangible systems but are still inherently inefficient. A nuclear reactor is more efficient than an internal combustion engine but it produces significant amounts of dangerous waste. Intangible systems, as the name implies, are less tangible than tangible systems but are still somewhat tangible. Untangible systems, on the other hand are entirely non-tangible and thus offer the only true relief from arbitrary waste and discomfort.

The emerging knowledge based on the study of dark energy will yield untangible systems that produce no "waste" whatsoever. Fusion would be one example (I know it's not viable yet). Untangible systems are hyper efficient.

Luckily, knowing how the intangible age was born, we don't have to wait for intangible scientists to "discover" us into this new untangible age. The current market mechanism which retards the proliferation of untangibles is as clearly apparent as the social mechanisms which suppressed the growth of intangibles was 150 years ago.

Just as in 1800 the market refused to value intangible reason, the market today refuses to value untangible creativity. It prices all songs at $.99, all movies at $10, all DVDs at $24, all books at $14--regardless of quality or demand. The same is true for television programming, magazines and any place that creativity is offered in the mass market. This effectively prevents the generation of a critical mass of high quality creativity.

This flat pricing structure is eroding fast. It is facing immense pressure from al sides as it destroys valued industries and creates mediocre creative content (and runs counter to all other sectors, which are increasingly creating value with premium offerings). If cars were priced the same way as songs, we'd still be driving Pintos. There'd be no reason to invent catalytic converters, hybrids, better or sexier rims, bigger sound systems--or just about any of the style or quality we enjoy in even cheap cars today. All this quality is driven from the top down. Without a robust and profitable top--a beautiful face--quality suffers everywhere. This is what every experiment with fixed price economies has shown us.

Once this dam breaks, historical analysis suggests that we could see world GDP growth averaging close to 25% a year, the creation of an entirely new and more valuable mass culture, and the proliferation of prosperity and freedom to almost all remaining parts of the world.

This could all be done while decreasing our environmental impact, offering increased job satisfaction, and providing more relaxed and enjoyable lives to people around the world. All we need to do is switch out our current paradigm for the new model. Greater efficiencies will do the rest.

And it will do them almost overnight: if the "regular body" took at least 1000 years and the "long tail" took 100, then the "beautiful face" should only take 10.

Whether you're interested in making money, saving the world, making a better culture or improving politics--untangible systems are your best bet. They'll offer returns that make current ROIs look stingy. If the tangible age made millionaires and the intangible age made billionaires, it's easy to imagine that the emerging untangible age will make trillionaires. The economy is ultimately about meaning and the only way to get high quality meanings is to value untangibles at market rates.

The tangible age was about what's predictable, the intangible age was about what's probable, the untangible age, then is about what's possible.

More about what's possible at www.whiteg.com

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I am a student,studying Graduate.But moreover i spend my time with The long Tail.It's very interesting.
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If you could delete those replicated posts I'd be eternally grateful...

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It sounds like Crosbie is describing a situation where someone (legally) purchases something and distributes it (illegally) for free to people not willing to pay the initial cost. An obvious example would be illegal music file-sharing.

Not sure if I'm right. Also not sure if there would be a legal example for this model.

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How do we allow the giver to feel the health benefits of generosity?
Encouraging the value of interest could be credit potential. Participation with donation is the new admission but we're losing honesty integrity from tricking our TRUST for profit.
Profit was product-based but won't convert to conceptual properties.

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Nice post.
Thanks for sharing.

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If my heart surgeon is bored, I might prefer to have an amateur who know something about it operate on me. I want whoever operates on me to be enthused about saving my life, and being enthusiastic about something usually means learning the technique very well. You could do a lot worse.

Besides, contrary to what they would have you think, reporters are not exactly heart surgeons when it comes to technique. The conceit that a reporter who went to Nowheresville State and got a degree in "Journalism" is somehow a trained professional on the same level as a surgeon or engineer is laughable to the point of absurdity. I could show you some pretty egregious examples of "professionalism" in any paper you care to name. Fortunately, journalism is a dying art, like its cousins alchemy and phlogiston chemistry, and soon we'll be rid of these pompous twits for good.

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@Christopher: Ads aside, isn't that just another example of a three-party market (Free 2). The list broker is the third party here, rather than an advertiser, but it's the same model. Economist lump these all together under the "two-sided market" category.

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There's at least one more "free" missing. Sale of audience as the commodity itself in a non-advertising format - i.e. I register on your site and you sell my personal data to a list broker. It's one step away from advertising, but it's fundamentally a different revenue model - the consumer IS the commodity.

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