Forget the Long Tail!

Some of you might not know, but I have a column at AlwaysOn covering the blogging, social networking, and overall Web 2.0 space. I'm suppose to be a part-time columnist (every 2-3 weeks), but I think I should be called a "one-time columnist" since the last time I wrote a piece was almost 5 months ago.

Yeah, I'm pretty lame. I missed the opportunity to write at least 3 good articles I had brewing in my head but didn't due to my day job. Anyway, I had fun with this piece and my initial rush job was tweaked several times to have more focus since I could have written about several issues I see within the video and entertainment industry. Rich, the managing editor at AlwaysOn, was the primary source of guidance, which I appreciated. He even thought of the title (thanks, rich!). Of course, Jill, my editor, helped in the normal editing process she goes through... once a year :)

Forget the Long Tail!
For video, it will be the big and mid-size players that win in the end.

A little over a year ago, I predicted that the PC would become an entertainment epicenter for U.S. consumers, much as it has in South Korea, where more than 70% of the residents cite the PC (over TV) as their preferred source of entertainment. (See "Where Technology Is Ubiquitous, Opportunity Abounds," January 2005.) Little did I realize how quickly my prediction could become a reality. A year later, my wife and I are watching episodes of "Lost" on my laptop's 15.4-inch screen. And when we're not doing that we're marveling over the perfectly visible beads of sweat on Kobe Bryant's face, thanks to our 50-inch plasma TV and a subscription to Comcast HDTV. Like the rest of America, our viewing habits are changing based on convenience and advancements in picture technology—and the ramifications of this for content producers could be monumental.

With their distribution channels disrupted and user-generated content on the rise, the lords of big media and entertainment are looking over their shoulders. And well they should: Thanks to new players like video-sharing services vSocial and Ourmedia, online editing and publishing service VideoEgg, and distribution platform Brightcove, just about anyone can create, edit, distribute, and even receive widespread recognition for his or her creative work today without the help of a major studio. But this isn't a story of the long tail; the hit makers will get richer. Instead, it's a story of the wide range of new revenue opportunities that are available to established and mid-size players in this evolving media landscape. (full article)

UPDATE: David Beisel, a VC at Masthead Ventures, has a response to my post, "Go Medium or Go Home?"


UPDATE: Since the old AlwaysOn site was taken down and posts were not properly transferred, just read the copy at OhmyNews here.