canadagood

Online Sales: Poking Holes in the Long Tail Theory

Long Tail is a great concept but I must agree that people make selections like lemmings and that long tail looks quite short sometimes.
I am one of those rare people who spend vacation time browsing used book stores. I have noticed that there are far fewer of them than before, and the ones that have survived concentrate on popular novels. In other words, in the average used book store there might be a handful of dusty travel and history books waiting for me to discover but there are a vast quantity more of popular romance novels and fantasy fiction.
We live in a disposable society and if you are not an aficionado of whats in the top ten -- or perhaps top 100 -- hits then you are generally out of luck.

Apple's Leap from Mediocre to Marvelous

I like this article.
I am a computer geek and I think that Apple computers are way oversold. I know that they are good and easy to use but they are not perfect and they are way expensive. I make a spreadsheet and check all the numbers before making a major buying decision; BUT Apple's computer marketing IS NOT aimed at me. Most people buy htese things based on emotion. (Apple really does make their darn products look sexy).

I suspect that investment web sites such as Alpha attract a high number of fact and figure and chart people like me; but most investors make decisions by poking a finger at a list of funds provided by their IRA. Or perhaps they make a decision according to which company's CEO was being praised in Time or Newsweek last week. We can't ignore these folks buying on emotion simply because we might be a bunch of number geeks. Those other investors are not wrong just different.

PS: I really loved that DELL guy a few years ago. He was way cool and too bad that he jumped the shark or whatever happened to him.