Essential Reading 1: "The Long Tail", by Chris Anderson

“The Long Tail” is a theory created by Chris Anderson (editor of 'Wired' magazine) about how the Web has opened up difficult-to-reach markets in the media and entertainment industry. Anderson observed that, before the Web, media companies’ primary model for making money was to focus on producing and selling “megahits” – the small number of songs, films, books and other products that deliver the highest sales volume (the dark blue region of the chart below). High costs have traditionally made producing, promoting and delivering the thousands and thousands of low-grossing, niche offerings (the light blue region) financially unattractive, or even prohibitive.