Shorter Tails Available

So I recently finished the book version of The Long Tail, and I thought that for those of you out there who might be wondering if its a must read or not.    After all, you think, I've read The World is Flat, Freakonomics, and The Tipping Point lately.  Is this one necessary too?  While The Long Tail is a fascinating read I'm going to have to say no - not when the same argument exists as a succinct five page long article available for free online.

When discussing The Tipping Point a friend of mine told me that the idea was very interesting, but that the book basically took that idea and applied it to different examples and that if you had read the first few chapters you probably understood the concept well enough as it is.  I felt the same way about The Long Tail.   If you are interested in seeing the idea applied in a number of different fields (the military application was the one that I found most striking) then definitely give the book a read, but if all you want is to get a grasp of the basic concept then I think you're better off with the original article.

I like to think that Chris Anderson enjoys the fact that his book is rendered somewhat obsolete because of alternate materials available online (which he provided), but somehow I suspect that he, like most authors, would really like to see his book sell a ton of copies instead.