Relationships, and Markets have a Long Tail, too!

I was thinking about LinkedIn, and their forthcoming features, and I realized that with tools for automating, and weighing contacts, and references, they are becoming an enabling mechanism for a Long Tail effect in professional relationships, where the aggregate value of the many smaller ones is higher than that of the bigger ones. So what does a big, or a small relationship mean? It can be measured by the number, and value of the connection’s connections, for example, or put in relationship with the potential value of the business generated through it. A simple often useful measure is the geographical market: smaller countries are often overlooked because of the difficulty organizing their coverage. The Long Tail effect should mean that these could become manageable, too.