CHART: LAUREL DAUNIS-ALLEN
How The Net Can Find Markets For The Obscure
The mass market is no longer supreme. Thanks to the Internet, you can also make money in the niches. That’s the notion behind the “long tail,” a term coined by Wired magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson to describe how the Net has made the lengthy list of low-selling products--the tail of the demand curve--as lucrative as hits. How? The Net’s ability to gather global demand for niche products means those niches can now sell enough in total to be substantial markets. Amazon.com’s recommendation service, for instance, makes hits out of once obscure books such as Touching the Void, while Netflix has made successes out of documentaries such as Daughter From Danang.
Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos estimates that 20% of book sales are from outside the 130,000 titles sold in chain superstores. That’s a market that scarcely existed before.