The long tail, a theory created by Chris Anderson, is a concept that several markets selling specific products will be more successful than smaller markets selling several products. Publishers in the online music business have been successful by adapting this business model to fit long tail. The increase in online social media, selling, and distributing music has made it possible for independent artists to be successful. iTunes, an online music publisher, is helping to further this effort by making local, independent music available to much larger audiences then local music stores ever have. The distribution of downloaded music takes the consumer's indulgence to extreme scales, much more than traditional methods of buying music. New doors have opened for viral marketing by adding features such as the genius function (which gives users the opportunity to buy music from artists of similar genre), a list of each artist's songs, and top downloaded music.
As Yaro Starak states in his article regarding iTunes, "The future of music presents an opportunity that is a win-win for artists and music fans. Artists gain the potential to make a living from their work and control exactly what happens to their career and image. Fans receive exposure to a much greater variety of music choices and will no longer be hand-fed mass-media commercialized music by iron-fisted profiteering corporate institutions."
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