pampelmoose Dave Allen of Gang of Four’s Music and Media Blog

I’m wading through Chris Anderson’s new book, The Long Tail. For anyone who is remotely interested in how the impact of the internet, and its ability to level the playing field is changing the face of business, this is the book for you. For instance, Anderson posits - “in the modern marketplace, what happens when everything in the world becomes available to everyone?” The answer lies in the premise of the ‘economics of abundance,’ where the combined value of all the millions of items that may sell only a few copies equals or exceeds the value of the few items that sell millions each. He shows how the internet has created a new world where the sales of millions of quirky items along the ‘tail’ equal the sales of a few items at the ‘head,’ hence the term The Long Tail. He also provides solid data on the decline of newspaper advertising and readership, the end of the blockbuster movie or cd and most recently has posted on his blog about the decline in broadcast TV viewership. As in this story - “TV viewers must have taken to the beach: It was the least-watched week in recorded history for the four biggest broadcast networks. CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox averaged 20.8 million viewers during the average prime-time minute last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. That sunk below the previous record, set during the last week of July in 2005.” Interesting times.