Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail" Book Review

Here is my Goodread's review of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson:

http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/04/the_cover.html

I read the first edition of this book (yes, I know I said that I'd be reading the second edition, but Amazon messed up my order) and I thought Chris Anderson did an excellent job of explaining what he calls "the new economics of culture and commerce" through his concept of the long tail. Since I have virtually no background in economics, I appreciated Anderson's colloquial language as he explained some of the more difficult concepts. I also appreciated his use of case studies to further illustrate these difficult concepts. From these case studies, it is very clear that Anderson did plenty of research before writing this book, as well as having a good background in economics before writing this book as seen in the analysis he offers after each case study. I also loved how he didn't just focus on today's world, but also looked back at how the long tail was used to influence business models well before the internet was invented.

The chapters are broken up into specific topics which allow the reader to jump around nicely. I chose to read it from cover to cover, which allowed me to see that some concepts are repeated throughout the chapters. By doing this I got a clearer picture of what concepts are most important when doing serious business in niche/long tail subjects.

Overall the book was very well done. This first edition is a bit outdated (it's seven years old), but I think the concepts still apply today. I am hoping to read his latest edition in the near future!