RSS の現在と未来

VentureBlog に RSS についてうまくまとまったエントリが出ている。

"RSS - Really Something Special?"

http://www.ventureblog.com/articles/indiv/2005/001187.html

シリコンバレーの VC をみるこのブログにおいて、RSS を取り巻く現状についてコンパクトにまとまった出だしでこのエントリは始まっている。

It is hard to travel Silicon Valley these days without hearing the term RSS. People who don't even know what the term means want to invest in it, create companies around it, or add it to their products.

猫も杓子も RSS というキーワードを中心に投資活動が活発化している様子が見て取れる。

で、RSS を取り巻く環境はしばらくまえの WWW を取り巻く状況と非常に似ていると指摘している。

RSS is developing in the same order as the World Wide Web: content, browsers, plumbing, media, and finally business.

コンテンツ、ブラウザ、「つなぐもの」 (plumbing)、メディア、ビジネスというプレイヤーがいる、ということの様だ。

それぞれのプレイヤーは次のようにまとめられている。

Browsers (readers): As RSS spread widely, thoughtful engineers designed a series of useful readers. These allow you to specify the content you want, and the reader will find and deliver it to you. There are now many readers, including You Subscribe, NewsGator, and IntraVNews (for Outlook), SharpReader (Windows client), NetNewsWire (Mac), Bloglines and My Yahoo (Web), as well as many others.

Plumbing: We are just starting to get tools to deal with the profusion of RSS content. These include…
RSS Search engines: Technorati, Feedster, and others.
Portals for RSS content: Technorati, FeedDemon, Bloglines, Syndic8, Del.icio.us, Blogdex, etc.
Content Managers & Servers: Six Apart, Blogger, Feedburner, others.
There are still interesting services to create in this area, including personalization, security, and other tools surrounding RSS. Plumbing is the area getting the most VC attention these days. When a VC says they're looking into RSS, they generally mean infrastructure.

Media: This has grown up with the readers. Some of the existing players are now supporting RSS feeds, and the blogging phenomena has thrown up some new stars (Boing Boing, Instapundit, Endgadget, etc.).

Business: RSS is still in the plumbing phase, so business and commerce concepts, such as advertising inserted in RSS feeds or charging for subscriptions are just now starting to appear. Some companies are also starting to poke around consumer commerce - Dulance, for example, is providing RSS feeds of price search results, so you know when prices change on items you've been eyeing. Others are exploring syndication of business data, or using RSS as a business communications standard.

現在の状況について乱暴にまとめると、ビジネスにまではたどり着かず、メディアとしても既存のプレイヤーが RSS フィードを始めていると同時に、RSS を使った新たなメディアプレイヤー(Boing Boing, Instapundit, Endgadget など) が出現しつつあるといった状況のようである。

では、今後、RSS をとりまく環境はどう進んでいくのか？以下のパラグラフであらわされる様な状況に集約されていくような雰囲気である。

Most of the future winners already exist, with only a few more to come in the infrastructure and business areas. While the space is evolving rapidly, I will be shocked if more than a handful of companies become large enough to be standalone ventures. More likely, current players will be acquired very soon if RSS does become mainstream for other applications.

In the meantime, we're finally getting a set of new content and services on the Internet. Enjoy

RSS というインフラは既存プレイヤーが強くなる仕組みであるという結論だが、果たしてこの VentureBlog が予想するような世界になるのだろうか？