Subject areaProcess and organisation
Chris Anderson is an American journalist and author, editor-in-chief of Wired from 2001 to 2012, and one of the writers who explained the internet economy while it was taking shape.
He should not be confused with the curator of the TED conferences, who shares his name.
His main ideas come in three books:
- «The Long Tail», first a Wired article in 2004 and then a book in 2006. The digital economy makes an almost endless supply of niche products economically sustainable. The logical step is this: when shelf and warehouse cost almost nothing, many products selling a little are together worth as much as the few hits;
- «Free: The Future of a Radical Price» (2009), a conceptual basis for understanding the forms of free and designing freemium strategies (the model where the basic service is free and advanced features are paid for);
- «Makers» (2012), on digital manufacturing and additive manufacturing bringing production within reach of small teams.
The site's Italian blog calls «The Long Tail» one of the essential books for living in the new century.
An example
A distributor of laboratory chemicals lists online thousands of rare reagents no physical warehouse would stock: each sells little, but together they bring in revenue the shorter catalogue never reached. This is Anderson's long tail applied to an industrial market.
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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