Once upon a time, perhaps as long ago as 1990, there was mainstream composed of limited media (television, FM radio, and print); a river of products designed to be sold through those media; and a steady flow of buyers who were influenced by the same media (especially television).

Then, in less than a decade, there came personal computers, the Internet, broadband computing, cell phones, iPod, MP3, TiVo, and on-line shopping. As impossible as it may seem, sixteen-year olds can’t recall a world without these. The result, according to author Chris Anderson, isn’t a single mainstream but an incredible number of small creeks all flowing in multiple directions into more niche markets than any past marketers thought possible.

Anderson, currently the editor of Wired Magazine, has credentials as editor of publications such The Economist, Nature, and Science magazines. He uses the book to point out what should have been obvious at the turn of the 21st Century:

“TV shows were more popular in the ‘70s than they are now not because they were better, but because we had fewer alternatives to compete for our screen attention. What we thought was the rising tide of common culture, actually turned out to be less about the triumph of Hollywood talent and more to do with the sheepherding effecting of broadcast distribution.

“The great thing about broadcast is that it can bring one show to millions of people with unmatchable efficiency. But it can’t do the opposite — bring a million shows to one person each. Yet that is exactly what the Internet does so well. The economics of the broadcast era required hit shows – big buckets – to catch huge audiences. The economics of the broadband era are reversed….

“There’s still demand for big cultural buckets, but they’re no longer the only market. The hits now compete with an infinite number of niche markets, of any size. And consumers are increasingly favoring the one with the most choice. The era of one-size-fits-all is ending, and in its place is something new, a market of multitudes.”

Anderson goes on to state that the sales result of this “market of multitudes” was unlike anything he had ever seen before. He graphed the hard data supplied to him by Rhapsody (one of the on-line music companies) and “it started out like any other demand curve, ranked by popularity. A few hits were downloaded a huge number of times, and then it fell off steeply with less popular tracks. But the interesting thing was that it never fell to zero. I’d go to the 100,000th track, zoom in, and the downloads per month were still in the thousands. And the curve just kept going. No store could ever carry this much music.

Way out at the end of the curve, tracks were being downloaded just four or five times a month, but the curve still wasn’t at zero. In statistics, curves like that are called ‘long-tailed distributions,’ because the tail of the curve is very long relative to the head.”

The staggering scope of making everything available to everybody on the planet is mind boggling. As we are rapidly discovering, the situation isn’t an industrial versus non-industrial situation. Despite the barbarity of terrorists in all parts of the world, they aren’t neo-Luddites and they are looking for choice. It’s the choices they want to impose on others that appears puzzling to us. They may not want iPods, but they have put cell phones to use as both communication devices and triggers for weapons.

As Anderson puts it, “The secret to creating a thriving long-tail business can be summarized in two imperatives: 1. Make everything available. 2. Help me find it.”

Although there hasn’t been much disagreement among economists about the long-tailed distribution effect, there are a growing number of questions about correct interpretation and impact on retail economics. Although the jury is still out on Anderson’s view of the future relationship of culture, marketing, and entertainment, he makes a thought-provoking case, one that is well worth the reading.

-- Henry Holtzman

Here are the current top 10 bestselling books for business. The list is compiled based on information received from retail bookstores throughout the U.S.A.

1. “The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux…$27.50) (1)* Why business globalization has arrived and is likely to stay.

2. “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable,” by Patrick M. Lenclon (John Wiley & Sons…$22.95) (2) Common problems that prevent teams from working together.

3. “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth,” by T. Harv Eker (HarperCollins…$19.95) (3) “The missing link between wanting wealth and achieving it.

4. “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” by Steven D. Levitt (HarperCollins…$25.95) (4) Why you shouldn’t accept the official version of anything.

5. “Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life,” by Spencer Johnson (Penguin…$19.95)(6)*** Motivational book becomes popu- lar once again.

6. “Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Sales Answers,” by Jeffrey Gitomer (Pearson Education…$19.99) (5) Sales guru offers answers to sales questions.

7. “The Little Book That Beats the Market,” by Joel Greenblatt (John Wiley & Sons…$19.95)(5) How to achieve a successful investing strategy at any age.

8. “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins (HarperCollins…$27.50) (9) Climbing the steps from being good to being great.

9. “Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis,” by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin (John Wiley & Sons…$27.95) (8) Why America’s future is fast approaching an economic crisis.

10. “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown & Co…$25.95) (10) Why instant judgments aren’t as fast as you believe.

*(1) -- Indicates a book’s previous position on the list.

** -- Indicates a book’s first appearance on the list.

*** -- Book previously on the list is on the list once again.