How Japanese and American Customers Differ
There’s been endless yakking about cultural differences between Japanese and US keitai users. Which features appeal to which culture? Is wireless Internet important for Americans? Those Japanese will pay for data, won’t they? Yada yada yada… We’ve heard comments ad nauseam about the differences between Americans, Europeans, and Japanese when it comes to choosing cell phones. While we have long disbelieved the odious stereotypes — like “Japanese want to pay for Internet access” and “American thumbs are too big for those tiny i-mode keypads” — we have to admit, we weren’t sure what to believe ourselves. WWJ gets to the heart of the matter with a visit to Cellular Plaza Mims, a unique cell phone shop serving large numbers of true-blue Americans here in Japan.
This week, Wireless Watch Japan ( WWJ ) was invited by NTT DoCoMo to visit their Club D Showroom, located on the 29th floor of corporate HQ in Tokyo. We do the intro from the FOMA F1 — that’s the race car that can communicate at 384 Kbps on a test track using FOMA, we play with 504i Java and 251i i-shot handsets and tried videoconferencing with the new 3G PDA by Sharp. This programme is pure eye-candy, and is not-to-be missed for the serious 3G wireless aficionado. Boy-o-boy-o-boy… it doesn’t get much better than this folks! After buying a soda via c-mode, we ask, “Why does DoCoMo spend so big to promote its technology?” 
There’s a tremendous amount of initial wireless LAN network activity going on in Japan right now, but it’s still too early to say how WLAN will affect 3G. One thing is certain however: licensed-spectrum carriers are looking closely at WLAN to determine whether the technology will disrupt their carefully knit 3G network, wireless Internet, and data revenue plans. We speak with an industry insider on a recent WLAN hotspot trial conducted by a major mobile telco. But large carriers and others thinking about launching hotspot networks shouldn’t worry about finding content. First, solve the billing, roaming, and security problems — then content providers will beat a path to your door… just as happened with, oh…, for example, i-mode. 
G-mode was set up in 2001 for the sole purpose of creating Java games for wireless. They say they’ve sold 63 million downloads since then, and their games are played 250,000 times per day. This is the first mobile content provider we’ve ever met that claims made-in-Japan games can be exported overseas, despite the barriers of language and culture. Considering that Tetris — known globally — has no text, they just could be right. 
With over 150 different Internet-capable cellular handsets in use by four different carriers, the challenge of formatting content to match the terminal is becoming, well, terminal. Each model has its own screen dimensions, color capability, and other idiosyncrasies, and if your business depends on making sure that mobile shoppers can see pics of all your products, like, say Yahoo Japan Auctions’ does, you’re in a world of hurt. Fortunately, one company has a solution. Thank God for the Americans!