The reality of the long tail
There’s an article in Slate discussing whether the long tail is as long as has been thought. Please do read it.
I think there might be a lot of truth in this, and I think it’s got to do with knowledge: In order to buy an obscure book or film, you first need to know it exists. It simply is not very likely anybody will pay money for a random song from iTunes that nobody has recommended to them.
Because of this, I think the size of the long tail is depending on online communities. If people mainly get their information from TV and other mainstream media, they’re going to buy items from the head, not the long tail.
Only if many people get a lot of their information from blogs or Facebook groups or other specialised contexts is it likely that the tail gets really long.