The Long Tail of Athletics

Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail, was recently reissued in paperback with an additional chapter and some revisions. I regret not having seen this business book earlier, but at the same time glad that during the last year I had not.

I say this to prod others to go get a copy and read it (it's a quick read, and well written). The editor of Wired magazine, many of his conclusions have been my own independently arrived at theories of where we are headed as an industry.

The Long Tail refers to the growing ability in the digital marketplace of profit to be obtained from inventory or information once considered unworthy of reaching the shelf in the physical business world. He also speaks to the ability of things out at the end of the Long Tail effecting brand.

In other words -- it all matters. It matters what the minor sports or doing (and how they are covered). It matters that those bloggers are defining who we are.

The most stunning chapter for our field relates to the Chevy SUV experiment where they encouraged people to make their own commercials. I vividly recall how the Madison Avenue-ites clucked at Chevy for being stupid enough to let the public use their website against them. To make anti-SUV ads. To poke fun at the brand. And to let it all stay on line. What clueless idiots.

Get the book. Read what really happened to Chevy's SUV sales numbers.

Anderson hits some of my favorites (and he's a much better writer), but really hones in about the change from Speech to Conversation with your fans regarding the brand; that we no longer control our brand -- our fans do (see the Dell Sucks section).

More to come over the next few weeks from the book. In the meantime, it's in almost any Barnes or Borders, pretty sure its at Audible.com also.