The Short on the Long Tail

The Long Tail is all the industry rage these days. Popularized by Chris Anderson in his book of the same name, marketers have raced to embrace and use this to their advantage. Google, Yahoo and others have ‘reprogrammed’ their algorithms to exploit the Long Tail. It seems that anyone and everyone is/are talking about how this changes everything.

Blogs are reporting how the once popular ‘standard’ Google searches are showing a new order of keyword replies. Industry pundits are claiming that this changes advertising and is turning everything on its head. Small companies are out performing large companies. Standard advertising practices are no longer relevant, and large brands will be left in the dust.

Chicken Little is shouting, “The sky is falling!”

I think not.

Here is my logic:

1. With enough sample data, the long tail data too falls within the 1st or 2nd standard deviation- it is a law of statistics
2. With enough market force embracing the long tail, large and small companies alike will start using their keywords/adwords and SEO to exploit that tail—more samples to populate #1
3. Marketing basics will prevail, marketing is based on adapting to drive awareness, consideration and conversion- whatever drive those three will be used
4. We are not in 2000 all over again- this is not magic, nor rocket science

Pundits will counter, when the long tail becomes mainstream as you claim, a new one will emerge. True, and that too, if the right thing, will become a standard as well.

The evolutionary cycle holds true about 170 years later. Darwin really was a smart man.