Treading on the Long Tail

Cult members will no doubt choose to shun me, but one important quibble I have always had with Long Tail theory is the notion that the flow of the mainstream is primarily determined by a combination of old economics and the marketing dollar. I do understand that taste is influenced by the constraints imposed by geography, shelf-space and the whims of wily marketeers, but there are surely also cultural forces at work which operate at the consumer demand level and these also help to preserve the traditional 80:20 dynamic.

Film production companies speak of low and high concept movies. Most Hollywood movies fall into the latter category. These are movies whose premise alone (and maybe also the cast) should be enough to guarantee an audience. European cinema often is more televisual and low concept scripts depend more on character and on the quality of their implementation.

To some extent something quite similar operates in the Music industry. People don't just buy records in order to listen to musical notes. There are some strong genre preferences in the marketplace (as there are in the Cinema) and these are often modulated by the charge of celebrity.

Excitement about the potential represented by Chris Anderson's model needs to be tempered by the recognition that the consumer who throws off the rusty old shackles of storage and distribution is not thereafter a born-again free spirit.