Comments on: All you need is 1000 True Fans

By: SkatterBand Blog | Fans: Your best friend or your worst enemy

SkatterBand Blog | Fans: Your best friend or your worst enemy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:09:57 +0000

[...] After your show, try and make it back to your merch table so that you can interact with the people who support you everyday. Sign autographs, take pictures, talk to them about their everyday life. This is what turns a “regular fan” into a true fan. [...]

By: Mei

Mei — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:02:19 +0000

Hi Stilgherrian, I’ll be your fan!

By: Stilgherrian · Oh you poor, dear record companies…

Stilgherrian · Oh you poor, dear record companies… — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:33:03 +0000

[...] Meanwhile, read Mark Pesce’s essay, Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century. I’ve linked to it before, but it’s especially apt today. Or read about 1000 True Fans. [...]

By: Stilgherrian · Post 1010: Half-way to Australia 2020

Stilgherrian · Post 1010: Half-way to Australia 2020 — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:49:25 +0000

[...] witty headline, eh? OK, well, only a little bit witty. But I missed marking the major milestone of Post 1000 on this website, so I thought this would be the next best [...]

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:53:41 +0000

@Mat F: Ah, you’ve answered your own question! I was going to say that the graph is a religious symbol, brandished by people showing that they follow the neo-economic belief systems of The Long Tail. It’s like having a fish sticker on your car if you’re a certain kind of Christian.

Less seriously…

Your description is correct. The idea is that with global ordering and digital delivery, with many products and services it’s now cheaper to service that long tail of minority interests. The market isn’t only about “a few big blockbusters”: you can also service a huge number of low-ranking interests.

Kevin Kelly distorts it in his presentation, where the horizontal axis is probably something like “people who buy stuff from you, ranked by the amount they buy”, and the vertical axis is “how much that person spends”. His thesis is that an artist can, though nurturing the fans, turn some of that long tail of low-spending folks into one of the few big-spenders you need to survive.

By: Mat F

Mat F — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:31:06 +0000

FYI:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/images/FF_170_tail2_f.gif

By: Mat F

Mat F — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:29:01 +0000

The original article doesn’t help. But the original original does.

Purchase rate for the vertical axis — a type of popularity.
Product ordered by popularity rank for the horizontal.

So the red area represents sales of popular stuff. The yellow area less popular stuff. And the long tail means the unpopular stuff outsells the popular — a greater total, but far less per product. The new model.

Fair enough.

And the “1000 True Fans” label written in red? Well, being an engineer I actually believed some thought had gone into it! My mistake. Better to re-read it as “hiding in this vast yellow area are your 1000 true fans”.

By: Mat F

Mat F — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:06:31 +0000

What does that popularity versus products graph mean?

The red colouring and the red label suggest that the 1000 fans can be found in the red area, implying that “popularity” is rather some measure of loyalty.

The axes suggest otherwise.

The original article doesn’t help.

Care to describe that graph in words?