« Razr vs. iPhone: Instant Pricing Obscolescence in the Cell Phone Business | Main | Enron: It Was the Other Jeff Skilling »
Latest Stories
- Excel Wankers and Recession Averages
- Sorry, New York is Closed. Check Back Later.
- Catching Falling 2009 Earnings Estimate Knife
- Survivorship Bias in Global Markets
- Talking Positions on a Lazy-ish Retirement Portfolio
September 6, 2007
The Long Tail is Not That Long
Interesting comments from Tracey Scheppach of Starcom USA on how the "long tail" isn't that long:...one lesson that I have learned from TiVo is when a consumer has control over what they want to watch and when, the long tail is just not that long. People want to watch the prime programming content at a place and time that is convenient to them. Once all of these shows are on all platforms, people are going to watch prime content. That's not to say they aren't going to watch YouTube, but there's a lot of hype that the tail is really long, and what I'm saying is all this content is going to find its place and the tail is not that long.[via AdAge]
Sphere It
| 
Digg it
| 
Bookmark it
| 
Stumble it
| 
Facebook it
I agree. The tail is so thin it goes under the traditional measurement standards which means that it is longer (approaches infinity gets longer and longer as time increases) and thinner(approaches 0 gets thinner and thiner) than can be measured. So where the measurement standards end the tail get cut off and the conclusion is that there is no long tail.
However the aggregate sum, starting from where it(the tail) gets arbitrarily cut off due to some inadequate standard of measurements and ending well it never ends it keeps growing, is quite large.
Very similar to how one values cash flows the largest part of the value is the part out in perpetuity. What drives that part of the value is the applied growth rate (constant or is it increasing)and the starting value. Valuing the long tail say for online video seems similiar, some assumption need to be made.
Seems like some smart guy or gal can come up with a formula and assumptions can be played with and ranges of values can thus be had for the various long tails that are out there.
Take it back! Must not belittle The Tail! Anderson get mad, skip conference.
Seems like buzzword abuse to me. Does she mean "not that long" or "not that thick"? Just because most people will watch "prime" content, how does that shorten the long tail?
The only thing that can shorten the long tail is marginal cost of inventory exceeding the demand curve for "non-prime" content. The marginal cost of inventory is absurdly low for video on demand, but maybe the ad revenue for limited views is even lower. She doesn't seem to be making that case, though.