The Emperor's New Tail

The "long tail"? Read this:

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/fashion/31apps.html

A survey of iPhones, iPod Touch and Android users conducted in July 2009 by AdMob, an advertising network that helps people promote their applications on smartphones, found that people discover apps most often by browsing app stores. And even though the iTunes store is bloated with offerings, people tend to gravitate to the most popular.

“For all the tens of thousands of apps out there, the odds of being exposed to more than a thousand are very small,” said Stewart Putney, the founder and chief executive of Moblyng, a company in Redwood City, Calif., that develops applications for mobile devices.

“The top apps featured at the store do change out,” Mr. Putney said. “But most users will never see more than 1 percent of the total apps available.”