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The Long Tail

Chris Anderson’s new book, The Long Tail, argues that the low inventory and distribution costs for the internet (Amazon, iTunes, etc) allow small niche items to thrive in a way that’s impossible in a bricks and mortar world. An item that might sell a few times a month isn’t viable for taking up shelf space. But it is viable for iTunes or Amazon and because there are a  lot of these items (the long tail), they can make a serious contribution to the bottom line.

He also has a lot of interesting insights into what he calls the democratization of production—think blogging and wikipedia. Check out the video in this post at his blog.

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