The end of the Long Tail? I don't think so

Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory is under attack by a Harvard Business School professor named Anita Elberse, and a lot of people are only too glad to pile on.

The Long Tail is a social and business paradigm which stresses the ability of obscure, niche content to find markets online. Read the column by the Wall Street Journal's Lee Gomes, who describes the HBS counterargument.

Besides conducting statistical analysis, Elberse also notes some conflicts in the qualitative arena, notes Gomes:

In addition to her data crunching, Prof. Elberse reminded readers of substantial bodies of qualitative social research that suggest "The Long Tail" may have been wrong in its description of what makes consumers tick. The book implies that readers and movie viewers are eager to cast off the shackles imposed by physical inventory so they can frolic among the thousands or millions of titles in the Long Tail.

But Prof. Elberse describes research showing that even in our cultural consumption we tend to be intensely social folks. We like experiencing the same things that other people are experiencing -- and the mere fact that other people are experiencing and liking something makes us like it even more. Far from being cultural rugged individualists, most of us are only too happy to have others suggest to us what we'd like.

Gomes himself seems to feel a sense of schadenfreude at seeing Anderson's theory being knocked down, which disappointed me -- I have read Gomes' columns in the print edition of the WSJ for years, and his tone in this case is uncalled for. Moreover, Anderson's theory may be under attack, but he hasn't conclusively been proven wrong (you can read his counterarguments on his Long Tail blog).

Based on my own professional and personal experience using the Web, I think Anderson really is onto something with his original theory. Niche content can be successful online for products or communities that would have had little chance of surviving in the physical, pre-net world.

In other words, the Long Tail ain't dead yet. We're only on chapter 2, and the final pages won't be written for many years, until more data is in -- and more people shift their shopping and media habits to the online world.