What is the Long Tail?

According to Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, the Long tail is a part of the business market such as Amazon or Netflix, that sell multiple products each in small quantities. It is the set of catalog products (books, CDs, DVDs ...) which are sold in small proportion, but the sum of sales could exceed the collectively sale of the most popular products.

Chris Anderson noted that a relatively small number of weblogs have many web links pointing to them, then that the long tail composed of millions of weblogs have few links pointing to them. In a series of conferences in the Wired magazine, published in October 2004, Anderson described the effects of this long tail on the present and future business models. He believes that products that are subject to low demand or have low sales volume can collectively represent a market share equal to or greater than that of bestsellers, if distribution channels may offer enough choices and create the link to discover them. Examples of such channels can be caught in Amazon.com, Netfix, Rezolibre.com or Wikipedia. As these examples illustrate, the long tail is a potential market, made available by the possibilities of the Internet .

The Long Tail is particularly suitable for Web distribution model because the cost of putting in an additional product line is marginal and displays virtual e-commerce sites are virtually infinite, unlike physical stores. The Long Tail applies perfectly to cultural distance.

Direct consequence: The Long Tail promotes the emergence of niche markets where niche products will be offered for sale and ultimately very likely find a buyer.

The World Is Flat

Thomas L. Friedman, columnist for the New York Times and author of several books on globalization, reveals his thoughts on the state of the economy and the role of the web on globalization. During a trip to Bangalore, India, where he studied the effects of outsourcing on the local economy, he realized that globalization has changed core economic concepts and he begins to write The World is Flat ...

“The World Is Flat” analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century.

The title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, where all competitors have an equal opportunity. It refers to the perceptual shift required for countries, companies and individuals to remain competitive in a global market where historical and geographical divisions are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

From globalization 1.0 to globalization 3.0 ...

According to Friedman, in the twenty-first century appeared the flattening of the economic playing field on the same platform (the Web) enabling many forms of collaboration. That process is done in 3 major eras:

In the first, he calls "Globalization 1.0" and which begins in 1492 until the early nineteenth century, globalization is driven by the country. States are active players in the world (Spain and Portugal explore Latin America and the East Asia, Britain colonized India).

"Globalization 2.0" begins in the nineteenth century and ended in 2000. The action is conducted by companies that globalize themselves to reach new markets and lower labor costs.

In "Globalization 3.0", from 2000 to today, what is new and different is that this momentum is carried by individuals.

From digitalization of content to social web ...

What are the steps that, in the end, make individuals the dynamics of globalization?

Friedman talks about three key stages. 

The first appears with the PC, which enabled the digitization of content (text, images, audio, video), making them malleable by other users and easy to share.

The second step appeared on August 9, 1994 with the IPO of Netscape , the startup that launched the first web browser. This is actually the browser that breathed life to the Internet. It is also the date that begins the "dotcom boom", system in which startups are over-funded. Then occur the "dotcom bubble".

The third step is the revolution in communication protocols, or he calls the alphabet soup (php, xml, html, http, css ...), allowing interconnectivity. The idea is that, whatever the machine on which you work, computer languages enable you to collaborate with anyone in the world.

These three steps lead to the creation of a global platform enabling individuals to participate / connect / work fairly and comprehensively, and the ability to send its contents everywhere for free.

What is learned from the "Globalization 3.0" is that we no longer download, but we upload. We put online our digital content using the levers of social web .

Examples: open source software, Wikipedia, YouTube and the millions of blogs or other social networks.

In a global world 3.0, the most important economic competition is the one between individuals and their own imagination. When the world is flat and that people have so much power, imagination is the true engine of the economy.

Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs

Microsoft has unveiled as a part of Office 2010 a suite of Microsoft Office Web apps that will compete directly with Google Docs. Microsoft's Web apps look like they could blow Google's online services out of the water.

Microsoft's new Web apps will let you create, edit, and save documents right online. Here's a quick head-to-head between Google and Microsoft Web apps.

Price

For personal users, Microsoft's Web apps will cost the same as Google Docs: nothing ! All you will need is a Window Live ID, and you'll be able to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote online and for free.

Winner: Tie

Look and Feel

Google Docs is keeping with the simplicity and ease of use that Google brings to its products. Microsoft, however, is not worried about complicating things, and this time that attitude may leads to good results. According to Microsoft, its Web apps will have a similar look and feel as their desktop counterparts. Microsoft also says that the Web versions of your formatted documents will render properly in most browsers, including Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox. Nothing has been said on Microsoft's plans for the Chrome or Opera browsers.

Winner: Microsoft.

Collaboration

One of the best characteristics of Google Docs is real-time collaboration in the Web browser. Microsoft is bringing similar functionality named “co-authoring”. However, it is not clear how exactly co-authoring works. With Microsoft, before you can collaborate, you must save a document to a Windows Live site or a SharePoint server, but the company doesn't say whether you can work together on a document right from the Web browser or if you need to use the desktop version. Moreover, it's not clear whether co-authoring only works on a private network, or if you can collaborate via the web.

Winner: Google. Real-time collaboration right from the Web browser is a winning feature for ease of use and Google Docs will work from almost any computer with connectivity.

Spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel's Web app will allow co-authoring and you can use the same Excel formulas you know from the desktop version. However, Excel online will not be as complete as its desktop counterpart. It will also simplify online sharing for Excel documents allowing you to easily publish a spreadsheet to blogs, wikis or other Web sites.

Winner: Microsoft. The familiarity of Excel, plus the argument of easy Web publishing.

 

Word Processing

The world's most popular word processor should have Google running scared. If Microsoft comes through on its promise to deliver a desktop look and feel to the online version of Word, it could be all over for Google. Both Google and Microsoft will allow you to create tables, bullets and styles and have spell checkers, but Word online will also give you auto-correct.

Winner : Microsoft.

Microsoft is making some big promises with its Web apps. However, Google may also stage an even bigger challenge to Microsoft later this year since the company is promising that Google Docs will undergo "dramatic changes in the next 12 months."