Reading Reflection No. 3

The book that I have chosen to read for this part of the semester is 'The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More' by Chris Anderson. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of the book and the overall lessons that it entailed. The point of the book is that in the future, blockbusters will not be the primary driving point of profits for any large industry. Anderson argues that with so much information available nowadays, people will go further and further down lists in order to find the perfect book, movie, or product that suits their preference. Because of this, while demand may not be large for some of these smaller name products, it will never be non-existent and the demand will only increase in the future. The book connected with what I've learned so far in this class in the fact that you do not need to develop a massive life-changing product in order to make a profit. It proved that a product can still turn a profit even if it is in low demand. An exercise for this class based off of this book would be to have each student think of ten products or services that would not be massive, but would simply be complementary to people's lifestyles. The biggest 'a-ha' moment of this book was when Anderson talked about how when people get access to more information, that they will continually search for products farther and farther for the mainstream. I had never thought of this, and it makes sense considering the technology boom of the past decade since people do not have to settle only for products that are popular.