The Long Tail and Mimetic Desire

by Sam on July 16, 2008

The Long Tail and Mimetic Desire

I’m a big fan of both Chris Anderson and Peter Thiel. Recently I have been reading a number of reports and articles contradicting the thesis behind the Long Tail, a concept coined by Anderson in 2004. The Long Tail describes a niche strategy of businesses that sell a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities — primarily using the internet as the platform for sales. Examples are Amazon.com and Netflix.

However, new research from the Harvard Business Review demonstrates that the revolution in Long Tail sales described in Anderson‘s book has not happened and the article begins to ask why that is.

Peter Thiel needs no introduction on this blog: PayPal Founder, Hedge Fund Manager, Facebook board member, and early stage VC/Angel. Interestingly many of Thiel’s trading and investment strategies are rooted in the philosophy of Rene Girard. One of the Girard’s primary assertions is the idea that mimetic desire drives much of economics. Mimetic desire states that we envy first the one who possesses an object and in many cases, we feel more satisfaction in the fact that another does not possess the object, than any value we actually take from an object itself.

So what?

Well Long Tail economics essentially contradicts Girard’s notion of mimetic desire. That is, if consumers actually gravitate toward the niche, or owning original, unique objects they are not envious of what others’ own. Also from a social standpoint, both on and off line we see huge growth in communities that rally around certain brands, missions and identities. In a world where everyone owns unique objects rather than mass-consumed objects, the role of community and sociality isn’t as strong.

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  • http://blog.ecairn.com dominic

    Very interesting post.

    What strikes me in these analysis is that everything is said as if the “consumer” was something static, solid and not a variable !

    In other words, if social media changes the way consumer behaves towards ” we don't know what”, then both mimetic and long tail questions are irrelevant.

    As an illustration, Karp's point” people want to read what other people are reading”

    a) Most of the teen I know do not read. Period. Or they read “things” that do not have names like a book or a magazine but Myspace and SkyBlog entries.
    b)How do you know what other people are reading? in a pre web2.0 model, thru big TV ads and newspaper articles. In a web2.0, thru amazon recommandation engine… if the engine is biaises towards big title, you'll got the same effect, if it's more fine grain in its suggestion algorithm, then you're DRIVING the consumer to diversity.

    The later is interesting since it could blend mimetic and long tail :-)

  • http://blog.ecairn.com dominic

    Very interesting post.

    What strikes me in these analysis is that everything is said as if the “consumer” was something static, solid and not a variable !

    In other words, if social media changes the way consumer behaves towards ” we don't know what”, then both mimetic and long tail questions are irrelevant.

    As an illustration, Karp's point” people want to read what other people are reading”

    a) Most of the teen I know do not read. Period. Or they read “things” that do not have names like a book or a magazine but Myspace and SkyBlog entries.
    b)Also, how do you know what other people are reading? in a pre web2.0 model, thru big TV ads and newspaper articles. In a web2.0, thru amazon recommendation engine… if the engine is biaised towards big titles, you'll got the same effect, if it's more fine grain in its suggestion algorithm, then you're DRIVING the consumer to diversity.

    The later is interesting since it could blend mimetic and long tail :-)

  • impossibleape

    Hi
    Very interesting but I think there is a perfectly good and memeetic reason why people want to be out ahead of the pack.
    The desire to find the new and unique is not so much a desire to have the new and unique but rather to be seen as to have the new and unique….this will make them appear to possess the qualities of taste, perspecasity, creative flair and so on. The memetic desire in this case is to emulate the trend setters, to be the fashion leader, and so to be the one others envy.

    Also the desire to be different is not the same as the desire to be utterly different. These types mostly want to be less like the unwashed masses and more like the insightful and noble few.

    But once the trend is set by these types the unwashed may take note and soon the market will be flooded with the products the 'out-in-fronters' once owned. The 'better than thou's' will have to seek out new unfamiliar products and life styles to demonstrate their superiority over the rest of us copy cats who follow them.
    And the memetic beast continues to chase its collective tail……

  • impossibleape

    Hi
    Very interesting but I think there is a perfectly good and memeetic reason why people want to be out ahead of the pack.
    The desire to find the new and unique is not so much a desire to have the new and unique but rather to be seen as to have the new and unique….this will make them appear to possess the qualities of taste, perspecasity, creative flair and so on. The memetic desire in this case is to emulate the trend setters, to be the fashion leader, and so to be the one others envy.

    Also the desire to be different is not the same as the desire to be utterly different. These types mostly want to be less like the unwashed masses and more like the insightful and noble few.

    But once the trend is set by these types the unwashed may take note and soon the market will be flooded with the products the 'out-in-fronters' once owned. The 'better than thou's' will have to seek out new unfamiliar products and life styles to demonstrate their superiority over the rest of us copy cats who follow them.
    And the memetic beast continues to chase its collective tail……

  • bveeresh1

    its very good if the engine is biaises towards big title, you'll got the same effect, if it's more fine grain in its suggestion algorithm, then you're DRIVING the consumer to diversity.

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