The relative sizes and weights of these segments (how many ranks in each segment, and what proportion of the total population is in a given segment) qualitatively characterize a distribution, analogously to the skewness or kurtosis of a probability distribution. Namely: is it dominated by a few top members (head-heavy, like profits in the recorded music industry), or is it dominated by many small members (tail-heavy, like internet search queries), or distributed in some other way? Practically, this determines strategy: where should attention be focused?
