One of the key buzz word emerging in 2006 was ‘Long Tail’. This makes people think that Long Tail is important. No doubt that in many applications, less popular content may add up to become significant. ANd for many businesses this is important to keep in mind. But this is also misleading to many young entrepreneurs.
It is important to realize that most content that is part of the long tail is created by people who really would rather be labelled as Head rather than the long tail. People creating long tail content — or being part of the long tail — are really working thier way to become the head. This is important to keep in mind for two reasons. Simply, once a long tailed person is clloser to the head, their a major change in behavior. Also, in many cases people visiting sites with long tail contet are really there in search of content in the head or that is close to head. ANd because they are already there, they would not mind looking around for the tail.
I don’t agree with your assessment. You cannot say that people creating long tail content mostly want to move up into the head.
I have an open-source project on SourceForge which is out in the Long Tail in terms of users and downloads. But I haven’t modified it in months, because I don’t really care if it ever becomes a “head” project. I would be thrilled if it did become extremely popular, but it’s not something I’m actively working towards. There are 59k+ such project on SourceForge, (see my Long Tail blog posting for details) so I don’t think I’m a minority in this regard.
Do you think most of the videos on YouTube, or most of the photos on Flickr are created and posted by people who want to “make it big” in video or photo production?
Sometimes (most of the time, in some industries?) people are happy to create content and micro-content for fun or hobby rather than out of a desire to become fabulously popular.
If you’re pitching entrepreneurial advice to the younger generation (me), I’d suggest a post with a little more content, and a little less creaky rocking-chair murmuring.
There are definitely some people who don’t want to be in the ‘head’.
But most people will welcome any opportunity that will place them in the head. This is what I have observed. You may have different opinion and I definitely respect that.
Just notice how people talk that this person who was ‘nobody’ became famous by posting his/her work on YouTube or how a similar sit help discove hidden talents.
ALso, as an entrepreneur it helps to develop sites that will be attractive to people and you always want to put content that will be in demand and that means that even in niche area, you are looking for ‘head’ — of if I may say you are always looking for ‘head’ in a long tail.
Long tail is still popular today atleast in internet marketing.