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Okay, I admit I am behind the times on this Long Tailthing but I read about 15 pages of Chris's book today and was blown away. Check out the original article from Wired or grab the book it inspired.
Like many things the principle is simple but profound: the Internet is turning traditional economics upside down in many businesses by making it economically viable to offer a massive amount more product than a physical retailer can. The most amazing thing though is that even massively obscure products in a stocklist of over 1m items (e.g. music) still sell at least 1 per month. When you add up all those 1's it makes a LOT of dosh. What does that all mean? Think of it as the hidden majority as Chris calls it - if you sell lots of small amounts to many niches it can add up to a very very big number.
What does this mean for our business and that of our partners? I don't know yet as I'm still reading but one initial thought is "should partners verticalise or horizontalise" and secondly, can our blogs help us build a longer, more informed tail of Microsoft Partners. I think so.