ロングテール論Update

いくつかロングテール関連でUpdateしておこう。
まずは「Googleとロングテール」について、本家「The Long Tail」ブログの「Eric Schmidt, Longtailer」
http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/05/google_longtail.html
から。Googleが最初に獲得できたのがロングテール・カーブの真ん中で、その層をシュミットはこう定義し、

Well-run, mid-sized businesses, smart people solving interesting problems.

その左側(大手)と右側(零細・個人)にそれぞれ未開の新市場が残っており、今攻略中であると語っている。

So [we went] in both directions last year. By going all the way to the top, we were able to capture very large and historically underserved businesses as well as a whole new area that never had access to these kinds of online services.

さて次に、USA Todayの比較的長い記事「What's ahead for Net, digital entertainment」
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-05-11-roundtable-usat_x.htm
はなかなか面白いので、ご一読をお薦めする。USA Todayはいつまで無料なのかな。ちょっと知らないので興味のある人は早めにどうぞ。質の高いパネル・ディスカッションの記録なので、まず冒頭部分の面白かった2箇所を引用する。

Chuck D: The fact that somebody in the Ukraine could just wake up and fall into their (home) studio and make some kind of material and submit it to a situation that can be heard worldwide — that, to me, is incredible. It's almost like a new radio.

(Ross:) We're looking at a way to take all these different types of media, not just movies, not just animation, but anything that people like to do — and figure out how to let people manage that and share that simply and easily. For all the talk about blogs and all, to me, it's still just a buzzword. I don't think that people really know how to do a lot of this stuff.

さて続いて「Q: What does the "long tail" mean for entertainment and media?」に対するロジャー・マクナミーの答が面白い。これまでコンテンツと言えば流通者にカネが流れていたことが問題で、これからはコンテンツを作る人に直接カネを流さなくちゃいけない、と彼は考えている。

At the margin, what I think you'll see is a more direct relationship between content creators, artists of one kind or another and their fans.
The thing that's truly amazing about blogs is how many of them have seven, eight, 10,000 serious readers a day, which exceeds the average reader of the average column in the average local newspaper.
What's been wrong is that capital, the money, has always been tied to distribution. The reason my firm exists is to change that, to put the capital with the content, with the creative people.

たくさんの1日数千から1万の読者を持つBlogは、ローカル新聞のコラムをもう超えているわけで、コンテンツ創造者・製作者と消費者の間の直接の関係ができることこそ本質だからだ。そしてさらにロジャーはこう言う。

If any of you is an entrepreneur, I'll tell you what I want — I want TiVo for BitTorrent. I want a thing that gives me full automation so I never have to think about it, and every high-quality Cary Grant movie gets automatically downloaded on the hard drive without any intervention by me. Nobody has done that, and it's stupid that they've never done it.

「I want TiVo for BitTorrent.」これは確かにいいビジョンだな。ここでTiVoを創業し、オペレーションで苦しみ続けてきたマイケル・ラムジーが、ビデオのサーチ技術の問題なのだとこう指摘する。

Search becomes a problem. The search tools that you use to find information, like Google and so on, don't generally work in video.
When Yahoo put up their video capability, I looked up (the TV show) 24. I had to go through about two pages before I actually got to the TV program.
There's going to be a growing need for entertainment-oriented search technology and for personalization and recommendations — if you like this, you're going to like that. It's not about a hundred channels or 500 channels anymore; it's about 15 million.

「entertainment-oriented search technology and for personalization and recommendations」にイノベーションの余地あり。なかなか面白いでしょう。これが「USA Today」つまり全国紙の内容。議論の濃さという意味で、日本の新聞とはずいぶん違う。
そして「Q: What do you see happening next in video and television?」に対して、ロジャーはこう答える。

There's a start-up called Akimbo that's about to ship a product. Its initial programming will be soccer from Europe.
It'll have things from India and from other cultures that have never been available because they don't have large-enough audiences to go on satellite or cable, but they have a plenty large-enough, and certainly devoted-enough, audience to go over the Internet.

彼が取り上げるAkimbo
http://www.akimbo.com/whatis.html
は、シリコンバレーとLAに拠点を持つベンチャーである。テレビのコスト構造ではペイしなかったニッチ・コンテンツに狙いを定めている。これもロングテール・ベンチャーの一つと言える。そして最後に再びロジャー・マクナミーの締めの言葉を。

Most major media companies define their technology strategy in terms of digital-rights management. Their view of the world is about controlling access to what they own. The next 10 years are about exactly the opposite. It's about the creative people and their fans getting together. Whatever it is you like, it will be increasingly available. It's time to give customers what they want.
It's now our job and the industry's job to actually do it. The old business models are brain-dead, and the body will die soon.

「既存メディアは、自分たちが所有するものに対するアクセスをコントロールするという世界観に基づき、技術戦略をDRMによって定義しようとしているがそれは間違いだ。次の10年は全く逆のことが起こる」と彼は言い、古いビジネスモデルはもう脳死状態で身体が死ぬのも間もないのだから、実際にそういう方向に導くのは我々の仕事なんだ、と締めくくる。ここにも「狂気の継続」が必要なのである。
さて、ロングテール関係の最新情報に限っていえば、たぶんGoogleで検索するよりも、こちらのほうが質の高いものが揃っていますので、どうぞご参照を。
http://b.hatena.ne.jp/umedamochio/?word=long+tail&cname=
(まだ「はてなブックマーク」の検索結果表示機能が十分ではないですが、とりあえず使えると思います。)