The "The Long Tail" thesis, first proposed by Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson last year, continues to draw its fair share of proponents, adherents and supporters. At the Syndicate conference in New York earlier this week, for example, Martin Nisenholtz of New York Times Digital mentioned the theory at least twice in his keynote address.

Now, there's a complementary (competing?) theory known as the "Variety Revolution" thesis that is being developed by Virginia Postrel. At her Dynamist site, Postrel explains what it all means:

"The variety revolution is one of the biggest business stories of the past decade. Thanks to production and distribution innovations, consumers now have access to far more choices for all kinds of goods and services, from fresh vegetables in the supermarket to DVDs from Netflix... The variety revolution is an economic story, but it has much broader implications for how we think about pluralism and individual differences."

Postrel's most recent book (The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, & Consciousness), published last September, started to explore many of the concepts that form the basis for the Variety Revolution thesis.