The Long Tail. Chris Anderson

The Long Tail. Chris Anderson. 2006. ISBN 1401302378. Editor of Wired, Anderson wrote the seminal article The Long Tail a few years ago. It sparked an immediate response, as has this book ( even more so pro and con). The original article forms the bulk of Chaps 1 and 8. It is worth the read as the discovery of this powerlaw is important to many visions of the future. It also has ties into the Web 2.0 all power of content to the visitors model. You should not ignore this work. He is a journalist, so the book is an easy read and quite compelling. He "wrote" the book in stages through his blog, so that is also following the most recent trend in publishing. Chris has a blog. http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/ The original wired article http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html and the Slate counter argument http://www.slate.com/id/2146225/fr/rss/