The beginnings of the Long Tail

Chris Anderson's wonderful book, the Long Tail, explains the growth of personalized markets which, in part , are conditioned on the availability of the Internet as well as digital technology. But I have often thought about what the real predecessors of the Long Tail were. Anderson's book doesn't deal with that but in a discussion on Econtalk Russ Roberts had with Virginia Postrel, she offered a coherent explanation.

Postrel suggested that two things happened in the 1970s which set the staqe for personalized marketing. First, the development of databases which could track individual purchases and preferences, helped to build the catalogue business. At the same time, the wider use of credit cards allowed both the seller and the buyer to have confidence that the transaction would be reliable. Both of those things seem about right.

If you have not listened to the podcasts that Russ Roberts does on Econtalk - you should. Roberts has some great interviews including a very good two part interview with Milton Friedman and ones with Gary Becker, Robert Barro, and Richard Epstein as well as a raft of other interesting people. Roberts is a great interviewer.