Orlowski has written about this topic in previous articles with the provocative titles Chopping the Long Tail down to size and The Long Fail: Web 2.0′s faith meets the facts

Now, that should stimulate a lively debate among the many who are basing their business proposition on this by now famous theory, developed by  Chris Anderson, the Editor of WIRED, a
number of years ago using the music industry as an example. The data quoted in these articles is certainly worth closer examination and study before making a final judgment but at first sight it makes a lot of sense. Just shows that once again grand new theories must be proven by facts before becoming reality and it might just be too early to come to a definite conclusion.