Introduction to the new media

Long tail theory- Chris Anderson

'The theoy of the long tail theory can be boiled down to this: Our culture and economy are shifting away from a focus on realtively small hits (main stream products and markets) example: Highstreet shops, at the ehad of the deamdn curve and moving toward a huge number of niches in the tail'.

As the cost of production and distrubition fall dramatically, especially online, the need to fit all consumers into a 'one size fits all box' is unessecary. An example of this is the Long Tail Theory's prediction that demand for products not available in traditional stores is potentially as big as for those that are. The same can be said for videos that are not shown on broadcast tv and songs that are not played on the radio. Basically the potential collective size of many small markets for things that don't sell well enough individually for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may someday rival that of the existing large market in goods that do cross the economic bar.

Two prime examples of this online niche market are 'Itunes' and 'Amazon'.

The Itunes store is a virtual store in which you can buy and download all multi media products; TV shows,Films and music E-books and apps.
The itunes store makes the products more accessible to their audience,allowing the products to be screened or heard on portable devices from their maker, Ipads, iphones and Ipods.
Itunes is a prime example for the Long tail Theory as when the products are downloaded, there is no need to send a hard copy such as a cd, book or dvd cover. The contents of the product would be streamed and placed directly onto the consumer's portable device. There is no Itunes store available on the highstreet, the contents of Itunes are only accessible digitally through the internet.

                                

Amazon.co.uk is another excellent example of the Long Tail theory at work. Amazon in it's entirety is one enormous online store with international websites for seven countries including USA, Japan, Canada, France, Germany and Italy. The sheer mass of content that Amazon provides through its website far surpasses what could be sold in a good few stores on a high street. As well as just providing consumers with a product directly, Amazon also allows peer-to-peer sharing of goods so that people can sell things they don't want and people can find new things that otherwise might not have been available on Amazon.

 

 

Other online niche markets available directly to their audience: