We’re happy to annouce the next book in the PopTech Book Club, The Long Tail by Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief (and upcoming Pop!Tech 2006 speaker) Chris Anderson. (Registrants for the 2006 conference have just received a pre-publication advanced copy.)

At Pop!Tech 2004, noted Internet Analyst Clay Shirky noted that blogs follow a power-law distribution of interlinkage — with a few “broadcast”style blogs dominating, and an infinite ‘long tail’ of “conversational” blogs stretching to the horizon.

Anderson expands and generalizes Shirky’s observation to encompass commerce and culture generally, and shows how a range of businesses, from eBay to Google, are embracing the long tail. These companies aren’t just finding revenue on the tail, either: they’re finding innovation, insights, and new approaches to product design among the tail’s passionate and engaged amateurs.

The Long Tail is a great, accessible read — and, ironically, destined to be a blockbuster.