One's man's troll is another man's contrarian. In my experience, the people who accuse Andrew of "trolling" are the fraudsters and opportunists he's satirizing - such as Wikipedia nuts and New Media blowhards. And usually, he's proven right.

I enjoyed this description:

There's a knack to getting the buzzword book formula right. The idea can't be false - but it shouldn't be falsifiable either. The idea should be simple enough to be explained by the subtitle, but vague enough to suggest applicability to all kinds of different markets - like a bland, all-occasions scent. And it must flatter the reader into thinking they are cleverer, and much more special than they were when they began reading the book.

Orlowski's point seems to be the same one made by Natasha Walter. The Head / Tail metaphor sucks:

what you are left with, if you're convinced by this picture of a culture that is all top curve or long tail, is a nagging question about what is happening to what has been called the middle torso.

A culture divided between the massive hit and the tiny niche may feel comfortable for retailers and producers of a certain sort, but not so good for others. Many writers do not just want to reach a tiny online community and yet will never follow the formulas that please a massive audience; many film-makers don't want to go it alone with a digital camera and sell to the teenagers on MySpace, but also don't want millions of dollars of computer-generated imagery and a first week opening on thousands of screens.

As I see it, the Long Tail is basically a simple method of marketing any product through search engines.

People can search for very specific terms relating to the exact item they are looking to buy.

If you can list "all" the features in various term formats - then you can gather more viewership - and sell more products.

TY for posting, it had been very handy and told a great deal. Can I reference some of this on my page if I incorporate a mention of the this website?

Kourtney, Everything here is published under this licence which explains the terms for copying material.