Panzer General is a 1994 computer wargame developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI). It simulates conflict during World War II . The designers of Panzer General were heavily influenced by the Japanese wargame series Daisenryaku .
81-492: Panzer General was a major commercial hit: 250,000 units were sold at full price, and long tail sales continued in the years ahead. It became and remained SSI's best-selling game across all genres, and was named the best-selling computer wargame of all time in 2007. It is the first in the commercially successful Panzer General series. Panzer General is a turn-based game, set on operational level hex maps . One plays lone scenarios from either Axis or Allied side and against
162-416: A Play by Email (PBEM) system. Panzer General 3D Assault arrived in 1999, with fully 3D graphics. Panzer General III: Scorched Earth was released in 2000, with better graphics and a redesigned interface. Long tail In statistics and business , a long tail of some distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the "head" or central part of
243-582: A SOC ( Information security operations center ). Frequency distributions with long tails have been studied by statisticians since at least 1946. The term has also been used in the finance and insurance business for many years. The work of Benoît Mandelbrot in the 1950s and later has led to him being referred to as "the father of long tails". The long tail was popularized by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article, in which he mentioned Amazon.com , Apple and Yahoo! as examples of businesses applying this strategy. Anderson elaborated
324-412: A bias toward popular products, creating positive feedback , and actually reduce the long tail. A Wharton study details this phenomenon along with several ideas that may promote the long tail and greater diversity. A 2010 study conducted by Wenqi Zhou and Wenjing Duan further points out that the demand side factor (online user reviews) and the supply side factor (product variety) interplay to influence
405-496: A computer or human opponent. In Campaign Mode, the player assumes the role of a German Generalissimus against the Allied computer. Panzer General is an operational-level game, and units approximate battalions, although the unit size and map scale from one scenario to the next are elastic. While the names and information for the units are reasonably accurate, the scenarios only approximate historical situations. Its novel feature
486-425: A deep connection with other, seemingly unrelated systems. Examples of behaviors that exhibit long-tailed distribution are the occurrence of certain words in a given language, the income distribution of a business or the intensity of earthquakes (see: Gutenberg–Richter law ). Chris Anderson 's and Clay Shirky 's articles highlight special cases in which we are able to modify the underlying relationships and evaluate
567-539: A distribution is (right) long-tailed if, for any fixed amount, when a quantity exceeds a high level, it almost certainly exceeds it by at least that amount: large quantities are probably even larger. Note that there is no sense of the "long tail" of a distribution, but only the property of a distribution being long-tailed. In business, the term long tail is applied to rank-size distributions or rank-frequency distributions (primarily of popularity), which often form power laws and are thus long-tailed distributions in
648-515: A doubling of this influence leads to a 50% increase in revenues from the least popular one-fifth of books. The long-tail distribution applies at a given point in time, but over time the relative popularity of the sales of the individual products will change. Although the distribution of sales may appear to be similar over time, the positions of the individual items within it will vary. For example, new items constantly enter most fashion markets. A recent fashion-based model of consumer choice , which
729-470: A given number of turns; taking them at least five turns earlier is considered a major victory . In scenarios from later stages of war, the Germans try to hold positions against a stronger enemy. A typical task is then "hold at least two of our objective cities for 20 turns; for a major victory, hold at least five". All campaigns branch out and end either by the general being sacked for incompetence or end of
810-529: A handful of links going into them. Anderson described the effects of the long tail on current and future business models beginning with a series of speeches in early 2004 and with the publication of a Wired magazine article in October 2004. Anderson later extended it into the book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (2006). Anderson argues that products in low demand or that have
891-455: A high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually "tails off" asymptotically . The events at the far end of the tail have a very low probability of occurrence. As a rule of thumb , for such population distributions the majority of occurrences (more than half, and where the Pareto principle applies, 80%) are accounted for by
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#1732780408310972-401: A large group of users that are in the low-intensity area of the distribution. It is their collaboration and aggregated work that results in an innovation effort. Social innovation communities formed by groups of users can perform rapidly the trial and error process of innovation, share information, test and diffuse the results. Eric von Hippel of MIT's Sloan School of Management defined
1053-410: A large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in the demand across products having a power law distribution or Pareto distribution . It is important to understand why some distributions are normal vs. long tail (power) distributions. Chris Anderson argues that while quantities such as human height or IQ follow
1134-466: A long tail is the cost of inventory storage and distribution. Where inventory storage and distribution costs are insignificant, it becomes economically viable to sell relatively unpopular products; however, when storage and distribution costs are high, only the most popular products can be sold. For example, a traditional movie rental store has limited shelf space, which it pays for in the form of building overhead ; to maximize its profits, it must stock only
1215-441: A low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Anderson cites earlier research by Erik Brynjolfsson , Yu (Jeffrey) Hu , and Michael D. Smith , that showed that a significant portion of Amazon.com's sales come from obscure books that are not available in brick-and-mortar stores. The long tail
1296-591: A major victory both in Britain and in Moscow, he or she is allowed to carry out an invasion of the United States and reach Washington. In any other case, he/she must fight well in many battles to get another chance to attack them. If either Britain or USSR survive this attack, they drive the Germans all the way back to Berlin . The best the player can do is to fight well in each battle to have enough prestige for
1377-577: A new Windows 95 and Macintosh version has just been released, it seems fair to say that PG will be incontestably the best-selling historical wargame of all time". The following year, T. Liam McDonald of GameSpot reiterated that the game had sold over 250,000 copies, and noted that 60,000 of these sales came from its PlayStation release. In 2007, Retro Gamer dubbed Panzer General "greatest-selling true wargame of all time", and SSI's most successful title across all genres. The magazine noted that it had accrued 250,000 full-price units sold "and many more in
1458-512: A normal distribution, in scale-free networks with preferential attachments , power law distributions are created, i.e. because some nodes are more connected than others (like Malcolm Gladwell 's “mavens” in The Tipping Point ). The long tail is the name for a long-known feature of some statistical distributions (such as Zipf , power laws , Pareto distributions and general Lévy distributions ). In "long-tailed" distributions
1539-422: A popular genre supporting the long tail theory. An Amazon employee described the long tail as follows: "We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday." Anderson has explained the term as a reference to the tail of a demand curve . The term has since been re derived from an XY graph that is created when charting popularity to inventory. In
1620-706: A rush now towards kindlier, gentler wargames. Bruce Geryk of GameSpot argued that Panzer General resurrected the computer wargaming genre. Panzer General was the first game in the Panzer General series, which grew in the years after its release. It was followed by Allied General ( Panzer General II in Germany), which allows play from the Allied point of view and features four new campaigns. Other sequels include Fantasy General , Pacific General and Star General . Its mainline sequel, Panzer General II (titled Panzer General 3D in Germany), upgraded
1701-431: A series of long-tail marketing techniques, most of them based on extensive use of internet technologies. Among the most representative are: The long tail has possible implications for culture and politics . Where the opportunity cost of inventory storage and distribution is high, only the most popular products are sold. But where the long tail works, minority tastes become available and individuals are presented with
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#17327804083101782-437: A time in which game-based training devices or simulations will be available for thousands of different job descriptions. The banking business has used internet technology to reach an increasing number of customers. The most important shift in business model due to the long tail has come from the various forms of microfinance developed. As opposed to e-tailers, micro-finance is a distinctly low technology business. Its aim
1863-601: A trick". In 1996, Robert Mayer of Computer Games Strategy Plus argued: In the years to come, computer wargamers may divide the world into two epochs, Before Panzer General , and After. Before Panzer General , wargames were supposed to be complex, intimidating things, accessible only by the anointed few, the grognards, veterans of decades of board gaming and masters of military arcana. SSI's Panzer General , however, shattered that view, with excellent graphics and animation, and sheer fun that drew in grizzled campaigners as well as green novices. Not surprisingly, there seems to be
1944-424: A unique opportunity for companies to leverage interactive and internet-based technologies to give their users a voice and enable them to participate in the innovation process. By doing so, companies can gain valuable insights into their customer's needs and preferences, which can help drive product development and innovation. By creating a platform for their users to share their ideas and feedback, companies can harness
2025-400: A voice and to enable them to do innovation work that is useful to the company. Given the diminishing cost of communication and information sharing (by analogy to the low cost of storage and distribution, in the case of e-tailers ), long-tailed user driven innovation will gain importance for businesses. In following a long-tailed innovation strategy, the company is using the model to tap into
2106-416: A wider array of choices. The long tail presents opportunities for various suppliers to introduce products in the niche category. These encourage the diversification of products. These niche products open opportunities for suppliers while concomitantly satisfying the demands of many individuals – therefore lengthening the tail portion of the long tail. In situations where popularity is currently determined by
2187-566: Is the "long tail" is often arbitrary, but in some cases may be specified objectively; see segmentation of rank-size distributions . The long tail concept has found some ground for application, research, and experimentation. It is a term used in online business, mass media , micro-finance ( Grameen Bank , for example), user-driven innovation ( Eric von Hippel ), knowledge management, and social network mechanisms (e.g. crowdsourcing , crowdcasting , peer-to-peer ), economic models, marketing ( viral marketing ), and IT Security threat hunting within
2268-512: Is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, the distribution and sales channel opportunities created by the Internet often enable businesses to tap that market successfully. In his Wired article Anderson opens with an anecdote about creating a niche market for books on Amazon. He writes about a book titled Touching the Void about a near-death mountain climbing accident that took place in
2349-468: Is capable of generating power law distributions of sales similar to those observed in practice, takes into account turnover in the relative sales of a given set of items, as well as innovation, in the sense that entirely new items become offered for sale. There may be an optimal inventory size, given the balance between sales and the cost of keeping up with the turnover. An analysis based on this pure fashion model indicates that, even for digital retailers,
2430-510: Is to offer very small credits to lower-middle to lower class and poor people, that would otherwise be ignored by the traditional banking business. The banks that have followed this strategy of selling services to the low-frequency long tail of the sector have found out that it can be an important niche, long ignored by consumer banks. The recipients of small credits tend to be very good payers of loans, despite their non-existent credit history. They are also willing to pay higher interest rates than
2511-441: Is vulnerable and needs protection. Before attacking the infantry and anti-tank, one needs first to destroy the enemy artillery that protects them from behind. If no tanks can get within range, one does this mostly by bombers, but then it is advantageous to destroy the air defense units first. The fighter planes must negotiate dual roles: destroying the enemy air force and protecting their own bombers. The player must carefully observe
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2592-478: The Gary Grigsby type of game that SSI was used to making". He noted that SSI founder Joel Billings was initially hesitant to adopt the design style. The company's Graeme Bayless later wrote of Daisenryaku : "The genius in this game was the fact that it took the highly complex subject (WWII conflict on land) and boiled it down to the pertinent parts". Daisenryaku would go on to serve as the inspiration for
2673-410: The user-driven innovation model, companies can rely on users of their products and services to do a significant part of the innovation work. Users want products that are customized to their needs. They are willing to tell the manufacturer what they really want and how it should work. Companies can make use of a series of tools, such as interactive and internet based technologies, to give their users
2754-557: The "local Markets" such as physical retailers like Target or even Walmart . With the digital and hybrid retailers there is no longer a perimeter on market demands. The adoption of video games and massively multiplayer online games such as Second Life as tools for education and training is starting to show a long-tailed pattern. It costs significantly less to modify a game than it has been to create unique training applications, such as those for training in business, commercial flight, and military missions. This has led some to envision
2835-562: The Gutenberg–Richter and the Zipf's laws. Use of the phrase the long tail in business as "the notion of looking at the tail itself as a new market" of consumers was first coined by Chris Anderson . The concept drew in part from a February 2003 essay by Clay Shirky , "Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality", which noted that a relative handful of weblogs have many links going into them but "the long tail" of millions of weblogs may have only
2916-472: The Gutenberg–Richter law and the Zipf's law are probability distributions. Therefore, in these latter cases "tails" correspond to large-intensity events such as large earthquakes and most popular words, which dominate the distributions. By contrast, the long tails in the frequency-rank plots highlighted by Anderson and Shirky would rather correspond to short tails in the associated probability distributions, and therefore illustrate an opposite phenomenon compared to
2997-522: The Peruvian Andes. Anderson states the book got good reviews, but didn't have much commercial success. However, ten years later a book titled Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer was published and Touching the Void began to sell again. Anderson realized that this was due to Amazon's recommendations. This created a niche market for those who enjoy books about mountain climbing even though it is not considered
3078-574: The World War II European theater. Sir Garnabus of GamePro complimented the accuracy of the 3DO port but otherwise panned the game, contending that war strategy games in general are poor due to their minimalist graphics and focus on thinking rather than acting. In their brief review of the PlayStation version, Next Generation remarked: "One of the best PC wargames of all time and still highly thought of, this version doesn't miss
3159-596: The advantageous use of the long tail: for example, Netflix finds that in aggregate, "unpopular" movies are rented more than popular movies. An MIT Sloan Management Review article titled "From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail" examined the long tail from both the supply side and the demand side and identifies several key drivers. On the supply side, the authors point out how e-tailers ' expanded, centralized warehousing allows for more offerings, thus making it possible for them to cater to more varied tastes. On
3240-546: The basis for a model for optimizing the number of each individual item ordered, given its current sales rank and the total number of different titles stocked. From a given country's viewpoint, diplomatic interactions with other countries likewise exhibit a long tail. Strategic partners receive the largest amount of diplomatic attention, while a long tail of remote states obtains just an occasional signal of peace. The fact that even allegedly "irrelevant" countries obtain at least rare amicable interactions by virtually all other states
3321-470: The best computer wargame released by late 1996. In 1996, Panzer General won the Origins Award for Best Military or Strategy Computer Game of 1995 . Reviews for the 3DO version were generally positive. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly remarked that the game's high level of complexity makes it difficult to get into and unappealing to anyone but enthusiasts of the genre, but that
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3402-475: The collective share of hard-to-find products, thereby creating a longer tail in the distribution of sales. They used a theoretical model to show how a reduction in search costs will affect the concentration in product sales. By analyzing data collected from a multi-channel retailing company, they showed empirical evidence that the Internet channel exhibits a significantly less concentrated sales distribution, when compared with traditional channels. An 80/20 rule fits
3483-472: The concept in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More . Anderson cites research published in 2003 by Erik Brynjolfsson , Yu (Jeffrey) Hu , and Michael D. Smith , who first used a log-linear curve on an XY graph to describe the relationship between Amazon.com sales and sales ranking. They showed that the primary value of the internet to consumers comes from releasing new sources of value by providing access to products in
3564-552: The decrease for the hits is more pronounced, indicating the demand shifting from the hits to the niches over time. In addition, they also observe a superstar effect in the presence of the long tail. A small number of very popular products still dominates the demand. In a 2006 working paper titled "Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail", Erik Brynjolfsson , Yu (Jeffrey) Hu , and Duncan Simester found that, by greatly lowering search costs, information technology in general and Internet markets in particular could substantially increase
3645-473: The demand side, tools such as search engines, recommendation software, and sampling tools are allowing customers to find products outside their geographic area. The authors also look toward the future to discuss second-order, amplified effects of Long Tail, including the growth of markets serving smaller niches. Not all recommender systems are equal, however, when it comes to expanding the long tail. Some recommenders (i.e. certain collaborative filters) can exhibit
3726-402: The distribution of product sales in the catalog channel quite well, but in the Internet channel, this rule needs to be modified to a 72/28 rule in order to fit the distribution of product sales in that channel. The difference in the sales distribution is highly significant, even after controlling for consumer differences. The key supply-side factor that determines whether a sales distribution has
3807-493: The distribution. The shift has a crucial effect in probability and in the customer demographics of businesses like mass media and online sellers. However, the long tails characterizing distributions such as the Gutenberg–Richter law or the words-occurrence Zipf's law , and those highlighted by Anderson and Shirky are of very different, if not opposite, nature: Anderson and Shirky refer to frequency-rank relations, whereas
3888-405: The distribution. The distribution could involve popularities, random numbers of occurrences of events with various probabilities , etc. The term is often used loosely, with no definition or an arbitrary definition, but precise definitions are possible. In statistics, the term long-tailed distribution has a narrow technical meaning, and is a subtype of heavy-tailed distribution . Intuitively,
3969-438: The effect of reducing demand for the most popular products. For example, a small website that focuses on niches of content can be threatened by a larger website which has a variety of information (such as Yahoo) Web content . The big website covers more variety while the small website has only a few niches to choose from. The competitive threat from these niche sites is reduced by the cost of establishing and maintaining them and
4050-427: The effort required for readers to track multiple small web sites. These factors have been transformed by easy and cheap web site software and the spread of RSS . Similarly, mass-market distributors like Blockbuster may be threatened by distributors like LoveFilm , which supply the titles that Blockbuster doesn't offer because they are not already very popular. Some of the most successful Internet businesses have used
4131-546: The entire Panzer General series. Panzer General was a commercial success. By November 1995, it had sold over 100,000 copies in the United States and 50,000 in Europe. According to William R. Trotter of PC Gamer US , it was particularly popular in Germany. By August 1996, sales had surpassed 250,000 copies. Describing the situation at the time, Computer Gaming World columnist Terry Coleman wrote: "When you consider that
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#17327804083104212-412: The experienced units as the most valuable assets. Panzer General has 38 scenarios based on real or fictitious battles from World War II. The player can engage in a single battle or a campaign mode. In Campaign Mode, a series of battles unfold as a campaign heads to victory. There is one long campaign as Germany, with five starting locales: The task in most scenarios is to take all objective cities in
4293-403: The first 20% of items in the distribution. Power law distributions or functions characterize an important number of behaviors from nature and human endeavor. This fact has given rise to a keen scientific and social interest in such distributions, and the relationships that create them. The observation of such a distribution often points to specific kinds of mechanisms, and can often indicate
4374-541: The following years". Panzer General won Computer Gaming World ' s 1994 "Wargame of the Year" and PC Gamer US ' s "Best Wargame" awards, and was a runner-up for the former magazine's overall "Game of the Year" award, which went to X-COM: UFO Defense . The editors of Computer Gaming World called Panzer General "the first wargame since 1987 to garner the #1 spot on the CGW Top 100 poll—a fine endorsement for
4455-410: The gameplay design is solid and there is a strong dose of variety to the campaigns. A critic for Next Generation argued that while the music and battle animations quickly wear thin, the game allows them to be turned off and "what it lacks in style, it makes up in substance". He made particular note of the impressive depth of the strategy and the ability to control nearly every land and aircraft used in
4536-457: The graph shown above, Amazon's book sales would be represented along the vertical axis, while the book or movie ranks are along the horizontal axis. The total volume of low popularity items exceeds the volume of high popularity items. Erik Brynjolfsson , Yu (Jeffrey) Hu , and Michael D. Smith found that a large proportion of Amazon.com 's book sales come from obscure books that were not available in brick-and-mortar stores. They then quantified
4617-430: The impact on the frequency of events. In those cases the infrequent, low-amplitude (or low-revenue) events – the long tail, represented here by the portion of the curve to the right of the 20th percentile – can become the largest area under the line. This suggests that a variation of one mechanism (internet access) or relationship (the cost of storage) can significantly shift the frequency of occurrence of certain events in
4698-515: The interface to use an overlay of photorealistic terrain, and to display different unit facings, resulting in an improved appearance. In the April 2000 issue of PC Gamer , it was voted the 44th best computer game of all time. The series continued with People's General , an upgraded version of Panzer General II based on a World War III scenario between China and the UN. Panzer General also provided
4779-437: The long tail also has implications for the producers of content, especially those whose products could not – for economic reasons – find a place in pre-Internet information distribution channels controlled by book publishers, record companies, movie studios, and television networks. Looked at from the producers' side, the long tail has made possible a flowering of creativity across all fields of human endeavour. One example of this
4860-709: The long tail as part of their business strategy. Examples include eBay (auctions), Yahoo! and Google (web search), Amazon (retail), and iTunes Store (music and podcasts ), amongst the major companies, along with smaller Internet companies like Audible (audio books) and LoveFilm (video rental). These purely digital retailers also have almost no marginal cost, which is benefiting the online services, unlike physical retailers that have fixed limits on their products. The internet can still sell physical goods, but at an unlimited selection and with reviews and recommendations. The internet has opened up larger territories to sell and provide its products without being confined to just
4941-499: The long tail formation of user choices. Consumers' reliance on online user reviews to choose products is significantly influenced by the quantity of products available. Specifically, they find that the impacts of both positive and negative user reviews are weakened as product variety goes up. In addition, the increase in product variety reduces the impact of user reviews on popular products more than it does on niche products. The "crowds" of customers, users and small companies that inhabit
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#17327804083105022-411: The long tail has grown longer over time, with niche books accounting for a larger share of total sales. Their analyses suggested that by 2008, niche books accounted for 36.7% of Amazon's sales while the consumer surplus generated by niche books has increased at least fivefold from 2000 to 2008. In addition, their new methodology finds that, while the widely used power laws are a good first approximation for
5103-437: The long tail opens up a large space for authentic works of creativity. Television is a good example of this: Chris Anderson defines long-tail TV in the context of "content that is not available through traditional distribution channels but could nevertheless find an audience." Thus, the advent of services such as television on demand , pay-per-view and even premium cable subscription services such as HBO and Showtime open up
5184-403: The long tail. The distribution and inventory costs of businesses successfully applying a long tail strategy allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The total sales of this large number of "non-hit items" is called "the long tail". Given enough choice,
5265-607: The long-tail distribution can perform collaborative and assignment work. Some relevant forms of these new production models are: The demand-side factors that lead to the long tail can be amplified by the "networks of products" which are created by hyperlinked recommendations across products. An MIS Quarterly article by Gal Oestreicher-Singer and Arun Sundararajan shows that categories of books on Amazon.com which are more central and thus influenced more by their recommendation network have significantly more pronounced long-tail distributions. Their data across 200 subject areas shows that
5346-556: The lowest common denominator, a long-tail model may lead to improvement in a society's level of culture. The opportunities that arise because of the long tail greatly affect society's cultures because suppliers have unlimited capabilities due to infinite storage and demands that were unable to be met prior to the long tail are realized. At the end of the long tail, the conventional profit-making business model ceases to exist; instead, people tend to come up with products for varied reasons like expression rather than monetary benefit. In this way,
5427-563: The most exciting wargame in a long time". In 1996, Next Generation listed it as number 51 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", contending that though the game's interface is simple, the complexity of the strategy is exceptional. In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Panzer General the 15th-best computer game ever released, and listed the Game Over scene as #8 on its list of "the 15 best ways to die in computer gaming". The magazine's wargame columnist Terry Coleman named it his pick for
5508-464: The most popular movies to ensure that no shelf space is wasted. Because online video rental provider (such as Amazon.com or Netflix ) stocks movies in centralized warehouses, its storage costs are far lower and its distribution costs are the same for a popular or unpopular movie. It is therefore able to build a viable business stocking a far wider range of movies than a traditional movie rental store. Those economics of storage and distribution then enable
5589-504: The next one - and to achieve a major victory in the final defense of Berlin. The design of Panzer General was based on the Japanese wargame Daisenryaku . The Strategic Simulations (SSI) team had played a Japanese-language version of the game's Sega Genesis release extensively, and were inspired by its streamlined design. Scenario designer Chuck Kroegel later described Panzer General ' s structure as "diametrically opposed to
5670-436: The opportunity for niche content to reach the right audiences, in an otherwise mass medium. These may not always attract the highest level of viewership, but their business distribution models make that of less importance. As the opportunity cost goes down, the choice of TV programs grows and greater cultural diversity rises. Often presented as a phenomenon of interest primarily to mass market retailers and web-based businesses,
5751-464: The optimal inventory may in many cases be less than the millions of items that they can potentially offer. In other words, by proceeding further and further into the long tail, sales may become so small that the marginal cost of tracking them in rank order, even at a digital scale, might be optimised well before a million titles, and certainly before infinite titles. This model can provide further predictions into markets with long-tail distribution, such as
5832-503: The potential value of the long tail to consumers. In an article published in 2003, these authors showed that, while most of the discussion about the value of the Internet to consumers has revolved around lower prices, consumer benefit (a.k.a. consumer surplus ) from access to increased product variety in online book stores is ten times larger than their benefit from access to lower prices online. A subsequent study by Erik Brynjolfsson , Yu (Jeffrey) Hu , and Michael D. Smith found that
5913-413: The power of collaborative innovation and stay ahead of the competition. Ultimately, involving users in the innovation process is a win-win for both companies and their customers, as it leads to more tailored, effective products and services that better meet the needs of the end user. The drive to build a market and obtain revenue from the consumer demographic of the long tail has led businesses to implement
5994-442: The rank-sales relationship, the slope may not be constant for all book ranks, with the slope becoming progressively steeper for more obscure books. In support of their findings, Wenqi Zhou and Wenjing Duan not only find a longer tail but also a fatter tail by an in-depth analysis on consumer software downloading pattern in their paper "Online user reviews, product variety, and the long tail". The demand for all products decreases, but
6075-412: The road system to speed the advance, or may use Bridge engineers to cross the rivers. The game rewards a Blitzkrieg strategy - penetrating deep into the enemy positions while postponing the destruction of some of the encountered enemy units for later. The performance of units is increased by their experience points, which are acquired through combat. In Campaign mode particularly, one then has to protect
6156-628: The standard bank or credit card customer. It also is a business model that fills an important developmental role in an economy. Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has successfully followed this business model. In Mexico the banks Compartamos and Banco Azteca also service this customer demographic, with an emphasis on consumer credit. Kiva.org is an organization that provides micro credits to people worldwide, by using intermediaries called small microfinance organizations (S.M.O.'s)to distribute crowd sourced donations made by Kiva.org lenders. According to
6237-412: The statistical sense. This is used to describe the retailing strategy of selling many unique items with relatively small quantities sold of each (the "long tail")—usually in addition to selling fewer popular items in large quantities (the "head"). Sometimes an intermediate category is also included, variously called the body , belly , torso , or middle . The specific cutoff of what part of a distribution
6318-447: The user-led innovation model in his book Democratizing Innovation . Among his conclusions is the insight that as innovation becomes more user-centered the information needs to flow freely, in a more democratic way, creating a "rich intellectual commons" and "attacking a major structure of the social division of labor". In today's world, customers are eager to voice their opinions and shape the products and services they use. This presents
6399-540: The war. In Campaign Mode, a major victory could possibly change known historical events. For example, after a major victory over France, the player invades Britain. Later in the game, after a major victory in Barbarossa, the player can convince the German High Command to attack Moscow immediately (which costs him or her much prestige) rather than diverting to Kiev before Moscow. If the player achieves
6480-400: Was argued to create a societal surplus of peace, a reservoir that can be mobilized in case a state needs it. The long tail thus functionally resembles " weak ties " in interpersonal networks. Before a long tail works, only the most popular products are generally offered. When the cost of inventory storage and distribution fall, a wide range of products become available. This can, in turn, have
6561-502: Was to link individual scenarios into a campaign spanning World War II from 1939 to 1945. Units are able to gain experience and become stronger, where success in one battle would award the player prestige to upgrade units, acquire additional units, and select a better scenario for the next battle. The game requires the player to use combined-arms tactics, where each unit is strong against some unit types but very vulnerable to others. Dug-in enemy positions must be softened by artillery, which
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