Legends of Long Tail

A few readers have asked me what the IT analysts are saying about the Long Tail. After failing to convince them that the long tail is (a) anything written by Thomas Hardy or (b) an equally obscure pun involving a parrot, it occurred to me that the most appropriate answer to their questions could be found in analyst blogs. And, I happen to have addresses for a few of those.

Here’s a very small start on what analysts have been saying about the long tail. I’ll update periodically through the end of the year. You’re welcome to add, comment.

John Blossom: Long tail implications for content owners, publishers and managers/librarians. John’s post, Riding the Long Tail: Libraries Confront the World of Infinite Content Supply and Demand.

Craig Burton: Dialed right into the most-cited online commentary. Craig’s post, How big is the long tail?.

David Card: Offers some personal perspective plus excerpt from Jup analysis. David’s post, Long Tail Hype — Busted.

Heather Hopkins: In case the post title wasn’t clear enough, she added a clear graphic. Heather’s post: Pirates of the Caribbean - The Long Tail of Search.

Carl Howe: Ties the tail to the tyranny, of course. Carl’s post: Why both The Long Tail and The Wall Street Journal are right.

IDC: wrote a report on Long Tail marketing and related stuff just for IT vendors, covered here “IDC: Impacts of the Digital Market Ecosystem on Software, Hardware and Service Vendors“.

Peter O’Kelly: Highlighted the top posts, and earlier this one: Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: The Long Tail and the Structure of the Media Industry.

RedMonk analysts have referenced Long Tail in many posts. An early one — by Internet time — is at Stephen O’Grady’s tecosystems blog: December 2004: The Long Tail = Consumer Play?; April 12, 2005: Basking in the Long Tail. James Governor’s MonkChips sports a March 2005 post: Wake Up To The Long Tail of Passion and Plug-Ins. They’ve got some tail in a recent podcast, too.

Amy Wohl: Her optimism and energy for the software industry shines through. I found this in her newsletter, not her blog: The Long Tail Of The Software Market.

Technorati Tag: Longtail, Analyst.