June 29th, 2006
I’m indebted to Chris Anderson, author of the newly-released The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, for this intriguing combination of Web 2.0 concepts. The idea of focusing on “niche” products rather than “big hits” is typically illustrated with data from publishers like iTunes or Amazon. But Anderson argues that it applies to software development, too, since every one of the “niche” Excel spreadsheets is, to some extent, a customized application that may only be used by one or two people.
Take a look at these two blog pages of his, here and here, for the details of his presentation. And take a look at JotSpot, a software vendor that’s using a wiki-based tool to help focus on niche-level applications.
