Far too long. The end of the book was the long tail of The Long Tail. If you get 1/3-1/2 way through it and find you already know the examples he is going to give, you are probably right. In addition, the book is about technology so it is dated--and thus the end can be left unread.

This is one of those books that I was very much aware of (thanks to the original Wired article in this case), but never got around to reading. I felt that I should largely because I regularly tossed about the core terminology (that is, long tail or Zipfian distributions) when talking about trends in products, software, Internet culture, and so on.

Overall, I think the book does a great job of introducing its core concept, but then wanders near the end, I think because Anderson was trying to (somewhat ironically) make it appeal to a broad audience of geeks, marketers, economists, and others. I think it would have benefited from more long tail examples from other industries (he touches on food and fashion, for example, in just a few paragraphs at the very end of the book).

I think it was worth reading, and had some interesting trivia, but is already showing its age, in no small part to the paradigm shifts in mobile computing thanks to Apple. A lot of the example companies he used have been marginalized or even gone out of business. I would still recommend it for people who are interested in the topic, but I don't think it has broad appeal, and you have to keep in mind that a 4 year old book is practically ancient in Internet time. I hope he does an updated edition.

This didn't need to be a whole book but the thesis is incredibly compelling and worthy of absorbing. It left its mark. I refer to the long tail concept frequently, even years later.

An interesting premise with accurate predictions (made in 2006), but the book could have been half the length and just as effective.

Makes me very uncomfortable regarding just how much writing I should be doing to keep up...

Here's another book that was based on a Wired magazine article (see [b:NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity|22514020|NeuroTribes The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity|Steve Silberman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421707890l/22514020._SY75_.jpg|41957894]).

A pretty good write-up of the long tail phenomenon in business.

The gist of it is, as the cost of maintaining an inventory of some commodity declines, the profitability of niche markets increases. And especially when your commodity is bits and bytes, the cost has declined dramatically, creating all kinds of business opportunities.

Worth reading, but it's a bit dated. Mentions MySpace and Sun. There's a bare mention of 3D printing.

The author is the creator of the "long tail" concept, and does an excellent job of explaining the idea and what it might mean for future business, especially retail distribution.

I was disappointed at how dated the material seemed in just 6 years. The concepts still apply, but the specific numbers, percentages, and sites referred to for online transactions are jarringly out of date.

A little, I am, to the Long Tail party.