THE LONG TAIL WILL SMACK YOUR BUM

Kem Cho,

as avid observers of the business you will no doubt have heard about the "long tail".

This is a description of the way numbers of sales drag off into infinity after a product is released. We used to call it back catalgue but the Valley techies have to have their own vocabulary.

There is also a misconception that the long tail may end up wagging the dog.

It won't.

The long tail is a chimera invented to win someone a PhD and convince all those of us hanging on by the fingertips that there is hope if we just play by the rules. It is bullshit! I can sell you a single CD and that will be part of the long tail. The question is how long is the tail and how big is the body?

I can see that the old fashioned Wolfhound is being bred out and we are going to end up with a Daxhund before long. Yip Yip Yip. There is not much meat on that tail.

What you need is to be a part of the body not the tail.

Preferably the head. The bit with teeth.

Ponder this for a moment.

When the world fall out of love with America the break up will be bloody and bitter. Not everyone wants to dream about California and its concommitant smog. Some like to imagine a beach without Muscles and dippy blondes. Some of us already have that.

Why would we want to race on Route 66 in a Mustang when we can travel across Asia on an elephant?

Why should we relate to Ghetto murders when we can stay at home and see our own people being slaughtered in such new, efficient and imaginative ways?

Why is NYC called the big apple when its losing its pith?

Beware of your assumptions people. What was once certain is no longer. America isn't the dream it once was. You bombed too many people too many times. The empire is dying and so is the rock business.

It is time for a new Weimar Republic.
Lets all get hammered and create frenzied orgies of creativity.

Or, maybe we should have a cup of tea and meditate.

If you don't believe me ask these guys:

Julius Caesar,
The Queen
Jesus,
Buddha,
Stalin,
George Bush,
Houdini,
Alexander the great,
Herod,
Beaver,
Donny Osmond,
Chairman Mao

tot ziens

CHEAP CD's

You have been warned people!


"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

Professor John Ruskin M.A. (1819-1900)