The Long Tail Energizes Innovation

Some of the most popular open source projects are Apache, Mozilla, Ubuntu, Asterisk and Wikipedia. Today, they are at the top of the popularity curve. Many other projects, of course, are not so well known and live farther down the tail of the curve. While they may be less successful today, they nonetheless represent the future of the open source world. Every project which is now at the head of the curve was itself in the long tail when it began.

What is the Long Tail?

The Long Tail is a term popularized by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine. The idea is that most things are of interest to only a few people at a time. Only a small percentage of things are hits with everyone. Everything else prospers in its own niche. But taken together, the aggregate bulk of niche items far exceeds the weight of the relatively small number of hits.

Think of the Long Tail as the engine for the continued success of open source software.

A great example is seen at Amazon.com which sells millions of books. Most of Amazon’s sales involves a few copies of specialized titles to a few people at a time, over and over again. When tallied up, the bestsellers make up only a small fraction of Amazon’s total volume of sales.

A study by the MIT Sloan school of management called “From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail” explains the dynamics of the Long Tail phenomenon. On the demand side, lots of people with their individual interests make up a huge market for new ideas and products. On the supply side, digital forms of communications like the Internet offer an almost free way to reach these niche markets. Before the Internet, the cost of physical storage and handling, such as advertising, logistics and shelf space, prevented less popular items from being available. E-commerce drives down the cost of handling and distribution. It promotes centralized logistics, customized advertising (like Google’s AdSense), and virtually unlimited shelf space. There is no difference in cost between handling popular or obscure items.

Why is it cool?

The Long Tail model of commerce is revolutionary. Hit and non-hit products get equal treatment in an on-line storefront. No longer does an idea or product have to climb to the top to be noticed. It just has to be relevant to someone somewhere.

The Long Tail model is inclusive. It gets rid of the middleman. It offers an instantaneous, direct and personalized connection between supply and demand. As the case of Amazon demonstrates, it can be extremely successful for both supplier and customer. Still, the Long Tail can fail if the supply side is not setup properly. For example, if licensing or distribution agreements are not worked out, the demand side may be stunted as individual users face unattractive complications. Exchanges in the Long Tail market must be smooth and transparent.

So why is the Long Tail cool for open source?

Open source has all the ingredients to benefit from the dynamics of the Long Tail. It is on-line and digital. It has lots of itches that need to be scratched. The Long Tail is an infinite pipeline of projects and solutions for the ever changing IT marketplace. By self-selection, the best projects from the Long Tail repeatedly move to the head in a process that fuels innovation. Think of the Long Tail as the engine for the continued success of open source software.