```json
{
    "title": "Long Tail == Heavy Tail == The Beaver Effect",
    "url": "https://performancezen.com/2004/12/22/long-tail-heavy-tail-the-beaver-effect/",
    "datePublished": "2004-12-22",
    "dateModified": "2022-04-18",
    "language": "en-US",
    "description": "The reason why the Long Tail concept seemed so familiar to me is that I work with the statistical cousin to the marketing term, the Heavy Tail. The term Heavy…",
    "author": "spierzchala",
    "publisher": "Performance Zen"
}
```

# Long Tail == Heavy Tail == The Beaver Effect

The reason why the Long Tail concept seemed so familiar to me is that I work with the statistical cousin to the marketing term, the Heavy Tail.

The term Heavy Tail is used to describe a dataset that is not "normally" (in the statistical sense; think Bell Curve) distributed. Internet performance data is notoriously heavy-tailed, with a large concentration of datapoints to the left-hand side of the population and a very slow and long/heavy tail trailing out into the nether reaches of "where things go very wrong".

When I gave training classes, I described this (being a Canadian, of course), as the Beaver Effect. If you are as puzzled as some of my seminar participants were, I am not suprised. However, go look at a picture of beaver -- none posted here; you know how to use Google.

Huge Body; large tail. The Beaver Effect.

Guess it doesn't resonate like the Long Tail.