Excellent book chronicling the effects of infinite inventory on what consumers purchase. In a nutshell: During the mid-20th century, "shelf space" was very limited, where "shelf space" can mean physical retail space at a book or record store, network TV channels, or radio stations. Thus the "water-cooler" phenomenon: Everyone watches the same TV shows and discusses them in the break room at work the next day. Also "hits" in music: All teens listen to the same three huge pop acts, and their albums sell a zillion copies.

Now enter the internet: Suddenly inventory is orders of magnitude bigger (the typical Walmart carries about 5,000 unique CD titles; amazon.com carries over 800,000), and where previously the majority of people bought the majority of stuff from the small slice making up the "head" of the curve available crap, now with infinite inventory and good search and filter technology (such as google), you can find things that cater to everyone. Companies find that, while no individual item sells many copies, the items making up the "tail" of the curve of available crap actually sell quite well in aggregate.

My favorite lesson from this book: We used to think that people were all the same and only liked the lowest common denominator of entertainment... The Long Tail suggests that LCD-style entertainment is a product of the scarcity of distribution channels, and that, while people tend to be similar in the basest entertainment desires, when given infinite choice, people are radically different and far more interesting.

Some interesting questions I've thought about since reading this book: To what extent does the political process in the US follow a "long tail" distribution? In other words, we get to pick between candidates from two parties, which is kind of like picking Coke VS Pepsi. What if people could pick between a range of candidates with a range of perspectives, and pluck legislators out of the long tail?

I wish I could describe how horrified I was reading this book... I knew that the criminal justice system was broken after reading David Cole's "No Equal Justice"; I just didn't realize how many men spent years on death row when there was DNA evidence exonerating them... More on this illusion-shattering book once I have some more time to write...