Do not have extra space to store anything more in your room?
The increasing of entertaining and information sources have create a problem to shopkeepers of record stores and bookstores. It has creates a problem of lacking of large space for so large amount of sources. And this is why, long tail has played an important role.
Long tail has provides shopkeepers a great place to store their large amounts of sources. It has also increase the demand and interest of audiences on buying a book or CD label. As what Anderson has mentioned in the article, online bookseller - Amazon.com has "created the Touching the Void phenomenon by combining infinite shelf space with real-time information about buying trends and public opinion." Online bookseller has brings a buying trends for a not-so-good selling books and many people has aware of this book. Through the public opinion that have commented in online bookseller sites, it has attracted people to buy the books after reading good public opinions in the sites.
Through online bookseller, people can easily aware of obscure books. There are unlimited selection in the sites and people just have to order, pay and save the book as a file in computer. Compare to bookstores, people have to walk to the shop and buy the books. However, they might not found the books they want as bookstores has limited space to store the books. In online bookstore sites, there are many different selection of books for audiences to choose and even old books from Journalists from many years back or non-famous book. Online bookstore sites's admin does not need to worry about the space of storing such much amount of e-books as long tail has gave audiences a big place to search for their books.
Long tail has provided a big space for people to expand their business. Through long tail, business people can selling their sources without paying any production fee, distribution fee and more. In a shop, they need to sell their sources like CD or books to gain a certain amount of money to get back the profit. This can really bring a big advantage to the sources distributor and audiences as well. Audiences can found unlimited interesting sources and sources distributor can earn profit without paying other extra fees.
It is true that long tail bring a lot of advantages to the society. But there are also some rules that applied into this new economy.
1. Make everything available
Will you feel depressed when you can't find the music CD you want in Label stores? I am sure this will not happen when everything goes online. Let's use iTunes has example. iTunes provides many different music from the world. From jazz music, pop music, kpop music and more. It covers big coverage of music. Besides music from singers, they also provided covered music from Youtubers. This is a big attractions as many audiences like cover version of music than original one. Youtubers will usually provides a link and said "you can purchase this covered music in iTunes". This is the rule. Make everything available, no matter what kind of music, books or any sources audiences need, it must in online since there is a big space for them to post it up.
2. Cut the price in half. Now lower it.
People like cheap stuff, especially when people see the word DISCOUNT. Same to online stores. In my opinion, low prices product will always gain more attention because audiences might think there is a risk in online buying. Giving discount is a good way of increasing sales and create awareness on that source at the same time. Customers are the king, we give what they like and provides things that satisfy them. They like discounts and cheap stuffs, so we give them discounts! :)
3. Help me find it.
Through long tail, a lot of sources have transfer from shops to online shops. This is a important rule for online shoppers to sell their sources. If audiences can't find the sources they want, they will not able to buy the sources and online shoppers will lose a business. Search engine can be provided in the site itself so people can search in the website. To help audiences find the sources successfully, name of the sources have to be keywords for example, name of the author, name of the singer, keywords in lyrics and more. Help audiences up, they'll thank you by paying you money. :)
Is long tail good or bad? Long tail has lead people to download sources illegally. People uploaded different sources online and let audiences to download illegally. In China, there are many different websites like www.sogou.com.my, www.baidu.com.my for people to download musics without any charges. This is the disadvantage. Long tail has provided a big space and people use it for unethical activities.
Sources and data are all digitalized now. People now can access and purchase sources from another country by online without flying over there. Digital sites like ebay, iTunes, Amazon.com and more play an important role and thanks to long tail, these sites are growing rapidly and it provides sources from different area and people which boost up the audiences' demand on entertainments. In future world, people might fully depends on online shops for searching old or new sources and CD shops or bookstores might disappear soon. I feel sorry for traditional books lover and also CD collector. :(
From the way you explained, I guess long tail is not something bad? Indeed, with the limited spaces in the bookstores or cd stores will never able to keep all products on shelves. There will definitely be "misses" all around.
ReplyDeleteBut with long tail, it'll remain available even for an outdated product. Guess the collectors of CD or books lover will love this for the fact that they can collect books that are no longer on the shelves. Isn't it?
Good for the customer/consumer but bad for the companies. After long tail phenomena appeared, the major competitor of the companies are no longer the other physical companies but the internet. Last time, they used to earn a lot through selling certain books (especially important ones) but now it's totally different.
I remember last time when I were to get CD Album, it cost almost up to RM50 for a CD with 9 tracks in it. But now, RM40 for 3-4 CDs with numerous tracks in. Guess the CD stores and book stores are having a hard time to remain their sales?
Since I'm still a consumer, guess I'll prefer long tail more than hating it! Haha! Nice post Pei Jie!
It is true that long tail did make people download things illegaly due to the capacity of sharing various sources. But still, it is convenient for us. Frankly, the society now is also utilized its' advantages to perform any actitivies which they want. It could be ethical or unethical, it just depend on them.
ReplyDeleteFrom your post, I can understand well about long tail. We cannot said that long tail had bring advantages and disadvantages towards people. Actually like what we doing now, also the same illegal download but it bring us advantages and convenience. Yes! Somehow it is very sorry to those book and CD creator as their work had downloaded illegal and get it without any charges. Anyway, it can't change as people keep doing it.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, long tail had bring a lot advantages for those people who are doing business. You can see now, there were a lot of people doing business online, from facebook you can see a lot of people start their business. Start a business online, the cost is totally lower than start a business by open a shop in shopping mall or others place. The shop can easily to get aware and attention from others as a lot of people like to shopping online and most of the people will be surfing net everyday.
Anyway, for me long tail is not a good or bad things for us.
Thought the post, I can imaging how if the world without existing bookstore, it's could be so competitive, as they couldn't see what they competitor doing.Somehow the physical bookstore will never die.
ReplyDeleteFor instant, from the real book store we can get the book once we take out the book rack and we pay for it, after we pay the book we own the book, compare to online bookstore, you need to take a long time to wait for the book mailing to our house, it's take a long time for waiting a book? It's not all the book provide e-book. Also for certain peoples, they still prefer a physical book rather than e-book, especially for novel reader, they would like to touch the real book instead of electronic. They are enjoy the feeling of touching the book.
Whereas Long tail business can satisfy niches market need, It's also a big advantage which most of the bookstore couldn't make it.
Long tail has its bad and goods. It is good for us consumer and people that do business online. Business online can save alot of money because it do not need a money to set up a physical stores and it have unlimited space. But long tail is bad for people that conduct their business in a shop. Long tail can help many unknown writer to get popular or sell their books because a book store will never want to sell their books since they have limited place. A book store will sell books that are popular and books that majority of the books lover want due to the limitationof the space.
ReplyDeleteBut then if everyone did their business online, not just sell books and musics but everything. Then there will be no physical stores and everyone buy everything online and people will just hang around in the house and online all the time. This is the bad side of the long tail. Hope it will not happen in the future.
Longtail able to store a huge data and also specific to a niche market. Online shopping is a trend today and as people are busier nowadays thus user would like to conduct purchase thru online.Besides, people nowadays would rely on technologies to collect their favourite items thus longtail actually helping the niche market and also the seller. In long term condition,old or classic stuff will been protected and not been forgetten.
ReplyDeleteLongtail gives advantages for both consumer and manufacturer, and it is win-win situation. I believe in the future, this market will grow bigger and maybe we don't need to purposely drive all the way to the shop purchase something, even groceries, but we order online and they send it over to our house.
ReplyDelete