General Theme:
- The general theme of this book is that popular items aren't as successful as they used to be once everything became available via the Internet. The Internet has allowed for an enormous number of products to be sold, because there is no shelf limit as to what a company can hold online. Popular items sold before the Internet accounted for a large amount of revenue, but today these "hits" will not account for as much revenue as they used to. Anderson is arguing over the importance of selling large amounts of items with smaller demand because these items still matter. Although the top items still account for a large amount of money, we can't neglect the mass number of items still bringing in a good amount of revenue.
How did it Connect With the Class?:
- The idea of present times changing and adapting to these changes can be a connection with the class. Entrepreneurs must be able to adapt their businesses with the times and take advantage of the changes. Also, broadening your thinking is important. If we are only looking for "hit" ideas, or ones that will make an extreme amount of money, then we may miss the abundant amount of ideas that may still bring in profit, but not as much as the "hits".
Exercise Based on the Reading:
- An exercise could be identifying businesses that haven't aged well as technology continues to improve. Looking at how these companies failed because they couldn't adapt with technology could be an interesting exercise, or you could identify companies that have aged well with technology and have thrived because of their changes. This could show students the benefits of being able to adapt, and maybe give some ideas to students for their own businesses for a path to follow.
The "aha" Moment:
- I chose this book because I wasn't sure what to expect from the name, it caught my attention. I wasn't familiar with the term long-tail, but after reading his message it all made sense. The idea is something we don't often think about, or take for granted, but technology has changed businesses a lot. Being so young, I take for granted being able to purchase nearly everything online, when 20-30 years ago things were much more different. It was a good book overall, it really made me think.
This wasn’t necessarily a new idea when Mr. Anderson wrote it – that removed from the limits of shelf space, the true diversity of interest, preferences, and passions could come forth – but his became well-reasoned take on it, and it’s certainly been true of many markets (entertainment especially – TV and music seem more diverse in audience spread than ever). But I wonder if this holds – there is also indications that social media and greater ability to find a similar culture to you through digital means is also decreasing diversity of preference – that we get the impression something is something we should be paying attention to, so we start to, which means more people are paying attention to that thing, which causes more people to decide to do so also, and so on. In this way, the culture has actually started to shrink again, and “winners” are taking even greater market shares than ever before.
ReplyDeleteI have read this book. The author seemed to be lacking in certain information. He believed we should go back to the old ways of mas producing a small variety of products. He simply did not understand that Americans in general are not changing but instead you standard of living is improving which is opening up the markets to new items.
ReplyDeleteI think the connect you made from The Long Tail book and ENT3003 makes a lot of sense and makes us think about future innovation. In order to survive you must react fast to change and have a way to innovate within your industry, so you don’t fall behind. I think that looking at other businesses failures and including an exercise that examines these failures are important because it will help you learn from other organizations mistakes when it comes to innovating and getting used to new technology in the workforce.
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