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Summary

The concept of the Long Tail according to Chris Anderson [1] is that idea that if a large number of unique items are offered available that each item will provide a profit as long as the costs for storing the items are minimal. In order for the long tail to succeed in business the company must offer all the popular items to initially lure in the customers. Once the customer has been initially lured in there is the potential that the large number of unique items will encourage the customer to purchase less popular items that appeal to them which result in a profit because of the cost of storage is minimal.

The Long Tail of Rhapsody

The music service Rhapsody[2] effectively utilizes the long tail of business, because the cost of digital storage is virtually zero. By offering a large number of songs digitally and using the most popular songs to draw in the customers initially Rhapsody is able to sell almost every one of its songs at least once a year at almost a pure profit [3]. The reason why Rhapsody is able to utilize this strategy so effectively is that they have virtually unlimited storage at a very inexpensive cost. This allows them to keep a song in storage even if they only sell it once a year.

References

1]The Long Tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail

2]Rhapsody http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_%28online_music_service%29

3]The Long Tail by Chris Anderson http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=2&topic=tail&topic_set=