The long tail

The table below shows that 40% of Amazon’s unitsales fall in titles with ranks above 100,000. That is that 40% of all the books sold are not among the 100 000 most sold titles! (You may have heard the number 57% and that is if you update the graph with 2004 sales figures.)

This phenomenon is called 'the long tail'.

     

"The term refers specifically to the yellow part of the sales chart above, which shows a standard demand curve that could apply to any industry, from entertainment to hard goods. The red part of the curve is the hits, which have dominated our markets and culture for most of the last century. The yellow part is the non-hits, or niches, which is where the new growth is coming from now and in the future." Definition from at thelongtail.

Read more at 'The Long Tail 101' at thelongtail.
The graph above is from a MIT paper on the long tail issue.
To read the original Wired article is found here.  

The question is; how do you reach your tail?

"Microsoft Dead"

On thing is clear, if Microsoft goes into a new area you know there is business in the area (or a threat to another). The last couple of weeks there has been much writing about their 'Live' solution. So no bigger surprise that one man in San Francisco couldn't hesitate to make a comment... and what a statement. 
"The speech was an amazing bracket to his famous Tidal Wave speech on December 7, 1995 about how Microsoft would own the Internet. But over this 10 year span, what has Microsoft done for business on the Web besides cloning a slow browser? The answer: nothing. "
...
"Last month, our number one competitor surrendered, and decided to take its place beside several former competitors at software's Shady Pines Rest Home, also known as Oracle. It was a merciful outcome for shareholders, but a time of con"fusion" for customers."
...
"This transformation goes by many names: On-Demand, Web 2.0, Software as a Service. But they all point to the same conclusion: The era of the traditional software "load, update, and upgrade" business and technology model is over. It is time for "The Business Web."
...
"A new range of start-ups are showing how this is just the beginning of the business Web--that there are new technologies coming to replace traditional word processing, spreadsheets, and other staples of business with Internet services. Companies like Writely, Numsum, Zimbra, and Goffice are breaking Microsoft's hypnotic trance that the Microsoft Office, and its myriad of clients and servers we are installing today, it is simply a dinosaur. "

Thanks Mark (Mark Benioff, CEO and founder of Salesforce) for putting words to the thoughts of every believer. Read the entire "internal memo" here.