Cutting off the Long Tail

Let me say upfront that I have absolutely no problem with long tails. When I was a girl, I had a pet poodle and despite all the pet owner peer pressure to have her tail bobbed, we didn’t do it. I had a poodle with a long tail. So, I’m all about the long tail. Except when it comes to most Web sites. Most Web sites need their long tails cut off.

I studied the Pareto Distribution in college enough to know that I didn’t want to be a statistician. Nonetheless, I was interested to see the concept pop up in Chris Anderson’s well-known 2004 Wired article . Basically, the concept is that given any large set of information, the usage pattern will be structured such that a small percentage of the information will be used regularly and a large percentage of the content will be used infrequently. Most people call it the 80-20 rule.

Chris Anderson’s point was that, for organizations that sell media and entertainment online, this could be and is turning out to be a financial boondoggle as Web shoppers start to buy obscure albums, old TV show episodes, etc. online. This gives online media stores a competitive advantage over the traditional brick and mortar stores. Lots of online stores carry no physical inventory. So, they can afford to store and sell lots of titles that even your local Barnes and Noble or Borders can not cost effectively get on their gargantuan but finite sales floor.

Chris Anderson even wrote a book on this I must say I haven’t read yet. That book is in the long tail of the pile of books next to my bed. But my point isn’t to argue with anything Chris has to say. What gets my goat is how Web Managers use the long tail concept to explain away grossly bloated, poorly maintained Web sites. Web sites that don’t sell anything, don’t add much value to the organization and sometimes are so messed up that they are a liability.  

Most organizations like to speak politely of their basically trashed up Web sites as Web sites with “Long Tails.” Here’s how the conversation goes:

Innocent Web surfer lost on a Web site: Gee, there sure seems to be a lot of irrelevant stuff from 1998 on this Web site. Wow! Look at these pictures from the 2000 Holiday party…that guy sure looks like he had too much to drink!

Web Manager: Oh, no…that’s not irrelevant stuff or embarrassing photos. It’s a “Long Tail.”

Innocent Web surfer lost on a Web site: Whew! That makes me fee better. I feel a lot better being lost in a cool sounding thing like a “Long Tail.” Before I talked to you, I just thought I was on a messed-up Web site.

Don’t get me wrong. A non-ecommerce Web site with a long tail can be of value-- particularly if the site has structured, categorized, searchable and retrievable information. That’s a fancy pants way of saying that people can actually find what they’re looking for.

But, we know that’s not most Web sites.

For most Web sites, the “long tail” just amounts to a bunch of junk. Most organizations running around talking about their “long tail” just have a bunch of outdated information and tools on their Web server they never got around to removing: an accumulated mass of yesterday’s Web content and applications which usually make for a bad user experience and increased liability for the organization.  Calling it a “long tail” is just putting lipstick on a pig.  If you are an organizational Web Manager, you know what’s lurking on that server. Find the garbage and get it off before one of your customers or competitors finds it.