Here is some evidence to support Pareto’s Principle that the Long Tail only represents 20% of a total given market. If indeed the Long Tail weighs in at a lighweight 20%, best not waste your time chasing it in a small market, especially if your distribution or reach is limited. Since real estate is a huge market, by all means grab that tiger’s tail and concentrate on a niche. But keep in mind, even long tailers like Amazon still stock bestsellers.
Robert Young’s post on GigaOm, Digg That Fat Belly!, offers the following stats on digg voters:
All the articles in the Big Head received about 250,000 votes in total vs. estimated 2.5 million votes for the ones in the Long Tail. As for the Fat Belly, those stories got a whopping 10 million votes!
Thus, the long tail of Digg gets only about 20% (2.5 million) of the total 10.25 million votes dugg.
Related Posts:
How Much Does The Long Tail Weigh?
The Long Tail: Part Deux
