Your ever-vigilant editors noticed this weekend – see below – that Engadget is looking for a video producer. Now, why do all the other cool mobile media sites pick up $26 mn in funding from the AOLs of the world.. and then decide they should start producing online video? We’ve being doing it for years — without the deep pockets. To Engadget’s credit, they often pull the latest WWJ reports. End of rant; we now return to our regular, video-enhanced, programming… 😎
By Daniel Scuka, WWJ Editor in Chief
Thanks to everyone who dropped us a note in the past two weeks while WWJ weathered The Perfect Storm: the power surged, the hard drives choked, the server crashed and the database disappeared. But the patient has recovered, and we expect to have everything tidied up shortly (if you find any broken links or misfunctions, let us know). Please accept our sincere apologies for the interruption! We now return to our regular, cutting-edge wireless coverage.
Yesterday’s Japan Times reported that a web site in Guam temporarily allowed access to a list of some 320,000 DoCoMo email addresses. NTT DoCoMo asked the offending company to take the list of the Net, which it did. How does a site operator in Guam (a US territory) get their grubby hands on several hundred thousand DoCoMo email addys? And why simply make them public (rather than reselling them)? And what’s happening with the list now? Some Monday mobile madness we thought you wouldn’t want to miss…
On Friday, the MIJ team wrapped up the October mission to Tokyo and headed home to the Heartland for happy hour and some relaxed networking; everyone was pooped but delighted with the program (so said the team, not me the organiser!).
After a full day Wednesday at CEATEC to view fuel-cell mobile batteries, digital-TV handsets and a super new satellite pocket rocket from DoCoMo, we spent Thursday and Friday back on the MIJ agenda, meeting with, respectively, an LBS application developer, a major content aggregator, an alternative mobile payment provider (to find out what to do when your content is just too pricey for the official menus), a mobile marketing manager and a 3G carrier, among others. Thursday evening was another highlight as we met with Andrew Shuttleworth, one of Tokyo’s most knowledgeable and opinionated mobile application usability gurus, and a trio of young, female, non-tech Japanese college students who utterly tore apart preconceived notions of why Japanese use mobile like they do. (What? You mean you don’t like to pay for content??)
Listen to WWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii and Daniel Scuka begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting on Dave Graveline’s “Into Tomorrow” live at CEATEC; from 11:00-mark via MP3 Here.
Another full day on the run for the Mobile Intelligence Japan mission-to-Tokyo crew, with three hours this morning focused on e- and m-payments. This is one of the hottest areas of interest for the wireless industry and we had a couple of great seminar room presentations that really helped everyone put the past, present and future road maps in perspective. Heading out on the street for afternoon sessions in Harajuku and on the Ginza, we managed to get our hands on some of the latest handsets coming from KDDI/au and got an inside peek at the possible future evolution of QR codes from ColorZip.
The evening’s local experts’ dinner, in a very traditional Japanese restaurant — with some fantastic food and conversation — was the perfect way to finish off the day. A dozen hard-core mobile pros gathered to exchange views and opinions about domestic and international markets and strategies while trying to keep up with all the plates and pitchers that just kept coming from somewhere on the other side of the koi pond. Like the title says… Now We’re (Really) Cooking!
The first full day of our Mobile Intelligence Japan tour has wrapped up with yet another stellar turn-out at Mobile Monday Tokyo’s OktoberZestEvent in Ebisu tonight. After a jam-packed schedule that included our visit to DoCoMo for a hands-on product demonstration and a meeting with Japan’s first (and still only) MVNO, the MIJ team settled down for a few margarita’s with bratwurst and sauerkraut to take in the evening’s feature presentations from G-Mode and Macromedia. Akio Tanaka and Dwight Rodgers (photo, right) from Macromedia Japan provided a fantastic overview of FlashLite and their new FlashCast mobile service (branded i-Channel on DoCoMo) to the almost 250 MoMo attendees.
Mobile Internet: See it. Hear it. Breath it. Understand it.
We really hit the ground running today with a detailed market introduction from WWJ’s editor-in-chief (and MIJ host) Daniel Scuka, followed by a mobile music report and then a working lunch before heading out into the jungle. Tomorrow, we focus on mobile payments and we will visit another carrier before winding down for a relaxed ‘local experts’ dinner.
After months of preparation, our MIJ mission to Tokyo kicked-off Sunday afternoon with a casual walk-about through the famous Akihabara electric town district. Over the coming week of scheduled meetings and events, we plan to post a daily update — right here on WWJ — of the highlights to provide subscribers a current snapshot of Japan’s mobile space. MIJ has an extensive agenda lined up, including company visits and presentations from many of what we believe to be the most interesting local players, a major networking event at Mobile Monday tomorrow night and a whole day out at Tech Disneyland — the CEATEC trade show.
You’ve got to experience it to believe it!
While most of these discussions will be held ‘off-the-record’ to gather info just for MIJ participants, we are looking forward to gaining an even deeper insight of where the industry is today and how things are shaping up for 2006 and to sharing what we can.
If you’re in Tokyo next week, plan to join the Mobile Intelligence Japan (MIJ) mission for one or more (or all!) sessions with some of the coolest companies making mobile in Japan happen. Agenda sessions include: carriers, content providers, application developers, technology vendors, m-commerce developers and more! MIJ is analyzed and interpreted by your guide and host Daniel Scuka, Chief Editor at Wireless Watch Japan, and the experts at Mobikyo KK, Japan’s leading source of mobile intelligence (and WWJ’s publisher). For complete details on the MIJ agenda contact us here.
The governments of China and Japan plan long-term co-operation for the development and standardization of future mobile communications technologies. Ministries of the Chinese and Japanese governments have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the two countries collaborate on the development and standardization of advanced mobile communications. The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) and Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) will co-operate on what they call fourth-generation, or “beyond the third generation” (B3G) technologies.
The IHT posted a story on Monday on issues related to television for mobile phones. The story says, in part, “Before true mobile broadcast services can take off, a number of questions have to be answered: Which of at least five delivery methods, ranging from cellular technology to mobile broadcasting via separate wireless frequencies, works best? How will the relationship between television content providers, channel owners and mobile phone operators evolve? What kind of programming, if any, do mobile viewers want, and how much will they be willing to pay for it?” All good questions, we think, but the story fails to report the first real brick wall that that mobile TV services/technologies will hit.
