Internet has enabled very niche markets to gain exposure at a far greater speed than any of us would have believed prior to its arrival. It’s great for consumers who look for creative things, not the kind of blockbuster-hits we used to be bombarded with.
An example of a long-tail business is spreadshirt.com, cafepress.com, zazzle.com and the likes – something similiar we are trying to build in Bulgaria and so far so good, orders are skyrocketing lately (Christmass comming, “original” presents needed) and most of the t-shirts people order are self-made portraits, of their loved ones or just some funny logo representing over 85% of all orders being custom made instead of using readily-made for shopping. If things go well we should have our customizable and exportable shop-partner program by early May, 2007.
There is a presentaion about the Long tail business of participation and creation from the founder of spreadshirt, who have built a very successfull German appearel company selling customized t-shirts with over 300 employees – link to presentation