Long Tail Getting Fatter ? Lets Look

I am not a fan of the Long Tail theory. Nor are some of my fellow bloggers.

PCW however has an interesting analysis out on the trend data. Have a look here at the summary information.

What I continue to worry about is that the model for OTA in any environment based on GDS searches results in a train wreck. I call the Online Search (aka the Look to Book) problem the Achilles Heal of our time.

Until something is done about search's interaction with the way that availability and pricing are linked then we will be at an impasse. The problem is defined as either the powershopper/masterpricer type entries vs the brute force transactions.

Neither is acceptable and both are problematic in both quality and practicality.

With the big 4 OTAs falling traffic now become more and more apparent - the demand for the second tier players to develop solutions that are competitive is apparent. These players need to deploy solutions that are smarter than the traditional GDS based search offerings.

Perhaps the next gen killer app is the combination of Facebook and Search. If one of these guys cracks it before the big players do - then we could definitely see a re-ordering.

Cheers

The Long Tail Is Officially Dead

Thanks to Professor Joe for this link. I will admit that I am late to this part of the debate. I also have to say I have never been a big fan of the Long Tail idea. It goes against the grain in my head that says:

few big customers = good
small, lots of customers = difficult and bad.

Oh yes and I am a big believer in the Pareto 80/20 rule

So it seems that that on November 17th 2008 Anderson (the editor of Wired Magazine and writer of the now infamous book on the subject) finally gave up the ghost with his end comment in an article in the Wired Blog that appeared that day:
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/11/does-the-long-t.html

"I'll end by conceding a point: It's hard to make money in the Tail."

At which point he got skewered royally around the web for the volte face. For example:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/21/anderson_long_tail_fail/

So the idea has finally fallen prey to reality. Hey it was nice while it lasted.

For more from Professor Joe go to his blog:

http://buhlerworks.com/wordpress/2008/12/03/so-the-long-tail-is-dead/

You might also want to go and look at a rather stimulating debate going on here:

http://blog.highlandbusinessresearch.com/2008/12/16/death-of-the-long-tail/comment-page-1/

There are a lot of people out there making money from trying to persuade people that the Long Tail is a good idea and those who are actually trying to make money out of the Long Tail itself. Just Google "Travel+Long Tail" and you should get between 650-700 hits. You will see what I mean. Both categories need to have a serious re-think.

As Eric Schmidt of Google put it (and this is probably what really sparked the debate):

"And just to be clear, it’s a 90/10 model. We love the long tail, but we make most of our money in the head, just because of the math of the powerlaw."

He does however hold out some hope (and if nothing else it is an OK self serving statement):

"But you need both. You need the head and the tail to make the model work."

So another myth debunked, a dream shattered, another dose of hard reality.

These are sobering times

Cheers