Business in the Longtail

Business in the Longtail is a strategy employed by many of the most successful web-based companies in the world. One example is a company that I always use personally in eBay. eBay makes its profit by focusing on the auction format, which is its example of the longtail. eBay provides online auctions leaps and bounds more proficiently than the closest competitor. Millions of people around the world use eBay for personal use and sometimes even run their own business off of eBay. eBay makes its profit by taking a percentage of each sale and by charging listing fees for each auction. Another longtail business is Netflix which promotes online video rental for a simple monthly subscription fee. Renting movies online and receiving them the next business day and being about to return them using prepaid postage puts Netflix on top about the rest. All in all longtail businesses focus on what they do best and promote the shit out of it to make their profit, and when successful, a enormous profit is there for the taking.