While the Long Tail has been a central topic of conversation among the Network Theory and “Web 2.x” crowd, we haven’t heard much from Wall Street’s analyst community. If there really is money to be made in the Long Tail, Wall Street will embrace the ideas. The first step in that direction is Spencer Wang’s research report for Bear Stearns. Wang’s idea is that aggregation and context are the central business ideas in the new era of the entertainment industry. Jason Calacanis talked about this on the Gillmor Gang as an “enabling platform.” Paid Content also weighs in. I view this as enabling playlists of time shifted content (audio/video/text). Dave Winer’s RSS will end up playing a crucial role in all of this.