When I talk about concepts on the web, I talk a lot about The Long Tail (wikipedia link). One of the things I usually say is "Hey, there's not a lot to understand..." and point to the main Pareto Distribution/Long Tail diagram, and also the diagram of the 'Architecture of Participation'.

The power of The Long Tail idea is really in its use to rationalise and understand behaviours on the web - what do consumers do when faced with huge amounts of choice and how that impacts your business.

So it was interesting to see this 'How to make a living as an artist' idea from BoingBoing. The full article (actually the whole blog) is worth a read:

But the point of this strategy is to say that you don't need a hit to survive.  You don't need to aim for the short head of best-sellerdom to escape the long tail. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living. That mid-way haven is called 1,000 True Fans. It is an alternate destination for an artist to aim for.