The Long Tail cover
  1. Introduction
  2. iTunes Killed The Radio Star
  3. The 98 Percent Rule
  4. How Technology Is Turning Mass Markets Into Millions Of Niches
    • Online Word Of Mouth
  5. The End Of The Hit Parade
  6. Long Tails Everywhere
  7. Make It, Get It Out There, And Help Me Find It
  8. The Wikipedia Phenomenon
  9. Lonely Island
  10. The Ants Have Megaphones. What Are They Saying?
  11. The Wal-Mart Effect
  12. We Are Entering An Era Of Unprecedented Choice. And That's A Good Thing
  13. What's It Like To Live In A Long Tail World?
  14. Video After Television
  15. eBay - How Far Can The Niche Revolution Reach?
  16. Coda: Tomorrow's Tail
  17. Exclusive: The Latest On The Long Tail

This site contains edited extracts from Chris Anderson's acclaimed business book The Long Tail, published in the U.K. by Random House.

The ideas from this book have spread quickly beyond just the web - and are now part of the very way we look at business and culture in the 21st century.

We urge you to read and share these ideas under the Creative Commons terms below.

(You could also just buy the book )

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

An Apt Studio site.

Read Chris Anderson's Long Tail Blog

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Online Word Of Mouth

What happened? Online word of mouth. When Into Thin Air first came out, a few readers wrote reviews on Amazon.com that pointed out the similarities with the then lesser-known Touching the Void, which they praised effusively.

Other shoppers read those reviews, checked out the older book, and added it to their shopping carts. Pretty soon the online bookseller’s software noted the patterns in buying behavior—“Readers who bought Into Thin Air also bought Touching the Void”—and started recommending the two as a pair. People took the suggestion, agreed wholeheartedly, wrote more rhapsodic reviews.

More sales, more algorithm-fueled recommendations—and a powerful positive feedback loop kicked in.

Particularly notable is that when Krakauer’s book hit shelves, Simpson’s was nearly out of print. A decade ago readers of Krakauer would never even have learned about Simpson’s book—and if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to find it.

Online booksellers changed that.

By combining infinite shelf space with real-time information about buying trends and public opinion, they created the entire Touching the Void phenomenon. The result: rising demand for an obscure book.

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‘Read this brilliant and timely book if you want to get a look at the future of business’
Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google

‘The natural successor to the “tipping point” in the field of big business ideas’
Guardian

"The ideas in this book are going to be talked about for the next ten years... get a copy now. It's worth it." Seth Godin

The Long Tail is now available in paperback. You can buy direct from Random House UK, Amazon.co.uk and Waterstones, or find it in any good bookstore.

Read more about The Long Tail

The Long Tail cover