A problem with the Long Tail

A problem with the Long Tail (Although an amazing number of things are powerlaws, a lot of things aren’t. How can you tell the difference?) (Read the text in the notes panel at the bottom for narration)

A powerlaw

Shown another way

The Missing Market

Source: Morris Rosenthal

The problem

Examples of phenomena that follow powerlaw distributions
Species distribution among plants
Square footage of Alaskan Inuit homes
Forest fires, by size
Cities, by population
Death toll in wars
Earthquakes
Word use
Number of papers published by scientists

Examples of phenomena that follow lognormal distributions
Concentration of elements in the earth's crust
Latent periods of infectious diseases
Survival times after cancer diagnosis
Distribution of chemicals in the environment (including pollution)
Species distribution among moths and diatoms
Crystals in ice cream
Length of words in spoken conversation

What’s the difference?
Powerlaws : created by “preferential attachment” in scale-free networks.

Lognormal distributions : created by "proportionate effects" (like growing by a proportion of your weight).

Question
Assuming it all comes down to network effects, how can you predict whether the “natural shape” (free of bottlenecks and other scarcity distortions) is a powerlaw or a lognormal distribution?

A problem with the Long Tail

by sanand0

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