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Create Nail Art on the go with Nail Club

Japan is unique in that consumer studies show that females use the mobile internet more than their male counterparts and you can see evidence of this in the large number of content sites aimed mainly at women. Beauty Walker and howzy !BEAUTY are examples I’ve posted in the past. Add recently announced Nail Club [.pdf], a nail art simulator for the mobile, to that list. You start with a blank canvas (an unpolished nail) and create your own design using 72 colours, 300 types of airbrush, 200 holograms, 100 3D decorations and 300 gems.

Japanese Music File Sharing: 2007 Update

Over the past few years, I’ve often been asked if file sharing – especially music file sharing – is as widespread in Japan as in the US and Europe. My answer has generally been something along the lines of ‘it certainly exists here, but the number of people doing it is pretty small compared to most other countries.’ In just the past year, though, we’ve seen a sharp increase in action taken by Japanese record industry and
copyright organizations to step up efforts against file sharing.

I suppose it’s not so surprising that mobile file sharing has become a major concern here – after all, 90% of digital music downloads in Japan are to a mobile phone. Researching further, though, I was a bit taken aback at just how prevalent these free mobile sites are, especially compared to just one year ago, which was the last time I had looked into the issue.

DoCoMo Enters Corp. Solutions Market in China

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced today that the company and UFIDA Software Co., Ltd., the leading Chinese supplier of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, will enter the corporate mobile solutions market in China through a joint investment in Fidatone Mobile Technology and Service Co., Ltd. DoCoMo will invest US$5 million (roughly 600 million yen) to acquire an approximately 33.3% equity stake in March 2007.

Video Report from the Global 3G Forum in Tokyo

Video Report from the Global 3G Forum in TokyoMarcus Evans held their 6th edition of the annual Global 3G Forum from 22nd to 25th January here in Japan “… the most successful test bed for new mobile technologies and products”. Wireless Watch was on-hand, as usual, to meet some of the brightest minds in the business and we caught-up again with well-known telecoms author, consultant and all-round very smart thinker Tomi Ahonen**. Our video interview with him at the 3G Forum last year is Here.

According to Tomi, the big news from 2006 centered on the rest of the world finally breaking away from the panic about 3G, the largest infrastructure investment ever. “In 2005 there was alot of despair and worry about whether 3G would happen.. then in 2006 3G started to roll-out everywhere and countries like Japan and South Korea reached 50% penetration.” The other notable development he mentioned was digital communities and their migration for mobile. He goes on to quote Informa’s recent report which estimated social networking revenues on mobile at $3.5 Billion in 2006.

While it should be no surprise that he predicts mobile commerce will be a major topic in 2007, find out why, and indeed what else he’s expecting in the foreseeable future. Tomi’s a well-tuned voice in the mobile business and we always enjoy spending some time to hear what’s on his mind.. enjoy the show.

We also managed to get Tony DeVuro, Director of Product Marketing, from AOL Mobile on camera for a chat about the new service they will be announcing next month. Stay tuned for that.

Year of the Pig Shaping up as Golden

What’s this?? … mobs of Flying Ketai Pigs..?

Actually, 2007 promises to be far more interesting than even that cheeky title! Here goes our official WWJ Fearless Forecast for 2007 – all in one – huge – breath!

2007 promises to be far more interesting than even that cheeky title! Here goes our official WWJ Fearless Forecast for 2007 – all in one – huge – breath! M-commerce: The carriers? FeliCa-based services will continue to grab serious market share. At the end of 2006, DoCoMo had over 1 mln customers for their DCMX mobile credit-card service alone, not to mention the 18.3 mn regular FeliCa handsets in use as of 31 December. KDDI and SoftBank have FeliCa user bases in the millions as well.. grab a cuppa for after the jump!

Kyocera Developing WiMax Devices

Kyocera Wireless Corp. and Runcom Technologies disclosed a development agreement aimed at leveraging Kyocera’s expertise in wireless device development and Runcom’s leading chipset technologies. The companies are working closely to develop exciting new consumer electronic devices employing the latest in broadband Mobile WiMAX technology. Kyocera and Runcom worked closely over the last several months in the early development of multiple classes of Mobile WiMAX terminals.