Reading the viral loop made me think about the stagnation in Japan and the game music industry.

久しぶりに読書感想文でも。

バイラル・ループ　あっという間の急成長にはワケがある

Adam Penenberg Appeasement of Nakayama

If you like social media and SNS, you will enjoy reading this book. Especially the viral effect is something that people who use twitter to a certain extent can feel. Especially because I experienced it at the time of the earthquake last year.

This book is great for understanding the development of the Internet business over the past decade, and it’s also a great way to get an idea of how it will develop in the future.

But the last part, Chapter 12, « A New Style of Advertising, » was a bit lacking. It would have been nice if there had been a point of view like brand-newness, more proposals for the future, or predictions.

However, this is a hot topic right now, and even Facebook is in the midst of exploring it, so it can’t be helped…

I’m feeling some kind of blockage again.

Still, there were quite a few scenes that disappointed me when I read it. No, that feeling might be stronger than the other.

But it’s not the content itself. In fact, the content is so good that I hardly have any complaints.

It’s about business style in Japan, or maybe I’m being too vague, but in the end it’s about the awareness of « the copyright of the company’s products » and « the company’s brand strategy ».

For example, a quote from this book, the

This is a « bad » example of not understanding the influence of viral marketing, which is important in the age of so-called social media, not to mention the internet, in any business in the future. But if you think about it, most Japanese companies seem to have this kind of stance.

It’s true that West Coast ideas are too open, so even foreign companies may feel uncomfortable with them, but there are still companies and managers who understand the mechanisms and importance of this particular kind of explosive spread.

But then again, I think there are too few companies like that in Japan.

Is this really something that can be put away as a mere cultural difference?

I wonder why these ideas don’t come up more often.

This is an era when IT net-related companies occupy the top positions in terms of market capitalization.

« What the hell is so fun about social networking? » There are still people who say

Well, I honestly don’t care if it’s fun or not. Because it’s just my personal taste.

However, if you are a businessman, the story is a little different.

It’s always better to know what direction the current online advertising business is heading in than to not know.

For example, Facebook is attracting worldwide attention for its IPO this year, and I wonder if the males of the world can understand why there are reports that the company is worth nearly $100 billion (whether it really is or not).

At the very least, if you don’t make more friends and « like » and experience the power of the news feed, you won’t be able to understand or even imagine how great Facebook is and how far ahead they are thinking.

When I say this, you might argue, « Well, it’s not just Internet-related companies that are in business.

Yes, that’s true.

However, Apple ($497.1 billion) is now the largest company in the world by market capitalization (as of 3/6/2012), and Microsoft ($266.8 billion) and Google ($199 billion) are also easily in the top 30 in the US market. Even Amazon ($82 billion) is a big player now.

That’s why, at the very least, the trends of these IT and Internet-related companies should be indispensable when discussing the overall trends of the current economy.

So, if you are involved in business, especially economics and finance, it is better to know it than not to know it as basic knowledge, of course.

I was also curious about the game music (industry).

By the way, when I was reading this book, I was also interested in something else. It’s a bit of a digression, but it’s « about game music ».

Because of my position, it may be problematic to write about it in a public diary like this, but I will try to write about it.

I play orchestra as a hobby, but lately I’ve been focusing on groups that play game music on their own rather than classical music.

One orchestra in particular has been in existence for more than 10 years, and has held more than 10 concerts and small concerts, so it is no exaggeration to say that they have a lot of experience in the industry.

Although they are amateurs, their arranging and playing skills have improved considerably. It is true that the level of performance is limited by the fact that we are amateurs, and we cannot reach the level of professionals, but we are proud of the passion of the performers, the quality of the arrangements, and the level of customer satisfaction.

Our content has a value that can’t be found anywhere else. That’s why there are so many people who are looking for it in various ways. In fact, tickets for our concerts are sold out in the blink of an eye after they go on sale.

Still, we are only allowed to listen to them « live ». In most cases, it is prohibited to make recordings or videos available on the Internet, probably because of the manufacturer’s copyright or branding policy.

So, once again.

In other words, I was reminded of this episode. Rather, it is more correct to say that this episode reminded me of the game music.

However, this may not be a problem only on the manufacturer’s side. Because there might be a reason related to the « Copyright Act » itself, of course.

But for what it’s worth, and I’m afraid I’m quoting again.

It’s not only that I think it’s far from this kind of idea, but it also makes me feel very strongly that I don’t understand the current trends.

summary

This is a very good book to understand the power of social media and the flow of internet related business.

On the other hand, while reading the book, I felt a strong sense of regret that this kind of thinking is not seen in Japanese companies, as I work and live with them all day long.

As usual, I felt blocked by these topics in this book.

P.S やっぱり紙の本ってマーカーがしにくい

By the way, the quote I used above was exactly like that, but it’s really hard to mark the part you like in a paper book.

Also, you have to go out of your way to type in quotes and such.

I thought it was especially inconvenient because I’ve been using e-books a lot lately.

こうした本が気軽に電子書籍で読める時代っていつになったら来るのかな？特にこの本は内容が内容だけに、できれば電子書籍で読みたかったかも。