There are arguments for-and-against Chris Anderson's concept of the long tail and discussions have gone back-and-forth on some of the data points that he has used. Its one of them ideas that will be trotted out as a cliche, so that strategic thinkers in a business and, or its consultants can avoid having to think for themselves.
It is being shamelessly overused by marketers and business people 'empowered' with PowerPoint as 'The Tipping Point' and 'Crossing the Chasm' have been.
However, I found this sweet interface (pictured) at Last.fm where you can run a slider up and down the tale getting popular to really obscure musical recommendations out of the system. The long tail metaphor provides a really intuitive way of communicating how to use the slider.
