Seeing Forests

Michael Bauer’s Look at Local 2.0

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The Fat Body of Local Product Search

July 7th, 2008 by admin

Two posts come together for me.  One, Finding Products in Local Stores Now and the other Debunking ‘The Long Tail’.  I’m all about de-coupling of products and services from the businesses that provide them (I like disaggregating but I’ve realized that’s just my vestigial MBA speak).  I’ve always been a little suspicious of the Long Tail - and I’m a little suspicious of it’s debunking.  I think the sweet spot is neither the “big head” or the “long tail” but that juicy middle part ( sexy body ;).  I think it comes together with product, specifically.  I’ve just got the perspective that what we really need is a service for finding things like “Sports Sandals” before finding the “Sun Trax Sandal from Columbia, Size 10 1/2, Espresso Color.”  There’s a process that most people go through to figure out a product category first and that needs to be tied to the businesses that provide that category.  Then, it’s appropriate to start promoting brands and finally the SKU.  Seems like a couple of layers are missing.  Something off the shoulder perhaps?

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