As long as I’m pimping books for Amazon, I might as well ask a dumb question that’s been on my mind for some time: how does the Long Tail work, precisely? More specifically, how does it work on a detailed level?
For example, anybody – myself included – can see why Holy Blood, Holy Grail would benefit from the Long Tail drag of the Da Vinci Code, given that the latter relies heavily on the former and essentially parrots its conclusions.
But why does the Tail not lift Eco’s intricate Foucault’s Pendulum, as Ben Henley asks in a comment on the Long Tail site? Or, further out the Tail, why not Barnhardt’s Gospel, which is very similar in subject matter to the Da Vinci Code, but features actual characters (as opposed to the Dean Koontz/Hollywood-style heoric couple that plauges each of Brown’s novels)?
Are there limits to how far the Long Tail can reach? Are there cases where it has reinvigorated a genre, or are its effects more localized? Is the drag proportional to the popularity of the original item (the Da Vinci Code would seem to indicate otherwise)? All questions I can’t answer at this point.
While I’m enjoying the Long Tail blog and look forward to the forthcoming book, I’m beginning to believe that my understanding of the Long Tail is akin to my understanding of Darwinian evolution, in that I accept both as true, understand the basic precepts involved, but cannot adequately explain its mechanisms beyond the most simple.
To me, the Da Vinci Code is to the Long Tail as the bombadier beetle is to evolution. For those that skipped Bio 101, the short version is that the bombadier beetle is an animal that creationists offer up as proof of God’s design, because it’s difficult to explain how it would evolve naturally. It’s rear end, you see, houses separate chemicals that when mixed together are volatile – as in they explode. The beetle, however, has evolved along with these volatile chemicals, enzymes that inhibit their reaction. And enzymes that counteract those enzymes. The end result is that this ordinary looking beetle can shoot fire out of its butt. It somehow evolved a liquid fueled rocket in its hindquarters, without destroying itself in the process. Not being a creationist, I don’t believe this disproves evolution – merely that there are mechanisms at work that we don’t yet understand fully.
Likewise, the Da Vinci Code is one of the more popular books in recent memory, but so far has had little positive effect (from what I can see – Gospel’s Amazon sales rank is 258,641 and holding) for what is in my opinion a superior and – according to Amazon itself – closely related book. Why is that?
It could of course be that I simply overestimate the quality of the Barnhardt’s novel, or even that like technology, the better product isn’t always well received. But I still think that as with evolution, the Long Tail features a lot of microbehaviors that are poorly understood. Poorly understood microbehaviors? Sounds like a case for Gladwell.
Ben Henley says:
January 13, 2005 at 12:14 am
The bombardier beetle story, as told by creationists, is a canard. The chemicals are actually inert until they're *activated* by the beetle's enzymes. And the reaction doesn't produce fire, but hot, caustic liquid. The mechanism could actually have evolved in stages – there's more detail than you could ever need here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html
That said, I think you're right to raise the question of when the Long Tail works. As some other commenters on the Long Tail site pointed out, maybe Foucault's Pendulum isn't obscure enough to enjoy much of a boost – its rank of 2400-odd is already quite high. Or maybe I'm perpetrating a canard of my own, and it *did* get a boost from Da Vinci – the only archived copy of its Amazon rankings I can find is from Jan 2003, and the comments are already referencing the Dan Brown book!
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.amazon.co…
Of course, if Foucault's didn't get a boost, this doesn't call the Long Tail effect into question, just suggests that it's unpredictable.
sogrady says:
January 13, 2005 at 8:42 am
interesting, Ben, i actually did link to and skim that piece and completely missed that tidbit. poor reading skills on my part.
it does strike me as a bit weird, b/c i have a dim recollection of stephen jay gould parroting something similar to what i said, but google turns up nothing. even with that, i still think evolution has a difficult time with these examples, b/c they are overly complicated. take the bat – it had to evolve indepedently the ultrasonic vocal capability and brain components that together make up its unique sonar abilities.
but again, i think that just proves we have more to learn, not that evolution is wrong.
ditto for the long tail. i agree with it, but it is – as you note – unpredictable. gospel, i think, is a better example of this than foucault's pendulum simply b/c eco enjoys a measure of popularity from the name of the rose (and, of course, b/c he's brilliant).