100 questions to ask before buying a franchise :: home :: Bike Tree
* 80/20 rule versus "The Long Tail" *
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Bnoopy: The long tail of software. Millions of Markets of Dozens.
iTunes has over one million songs in it?s catalog. You know how many have been bought at least once?
Every one.
Completely counter to the traditional 80/20 rule, every iTunes song has been purchased at least once.
What this says to me is that the tradition 80/20 ?rule? is more a function of consumers having their expectations set by the limits of physical inventory in retail stores than it is about real human nature. Amazon and iTunes are great examples.
I've been reading a bit about the "long tail" economy that is quickly supplanting the "80/20" rule. Basically it goes like this: in the past your choices were limited to physical inventory of the business you visited. WalMart is big, but it doesn't have everything. Amazon and iTunes have figured out that there are viturally no limit to physical inventory (iTunes has it better than Amazon for sure) when a storefront is simply online.
The long tail...the long tail....the long tail. Just keep repeating it until you come up with the next great business idea.
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