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 The Long Tail is about how our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to
million of niches. The term refers to the yellow part of the sales chart, which shows a standard
demand curve that could apply to any industry, from entertainment to hard goods. The vertical axis is
sales; the horizontal is products. The red part of the curve is the “hits,” which have dominated our
markets and culture for most of the last century. The yellow part is the nonhits, or niches, which is
where the new growth will come. The Long Tail is about the effect of the technologies that have made
it easier for consumers to find and buy niche products, thanks to the infinite shelf-space effect and
new digital distribution mechanisms, from digital downloading to peer-to-peer markets that break
through the bottlenecks of broadcast and traditional bricks and mortar retail.
The two big points of The Long Tail theory are:
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The yellow part potentially extends forever to the right
- The area under that line—the aggregate market of niches it represents—may become as big
as the hits at the left.
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