Editor’s Note
Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

3GSM 2007 Award Winners

The 12th Annual GSM Association Global Mobile Awards were announced last night in Barcelona at the annual industry event which showcases the best of the mobile world. The stars of the night were the 2007 Global Mobile Awards winners, whose achievements provide an insight into the services, devices and innovation that are taking the mobile industry forward. Sony Ericsson’s K800 CyberShot handset won best 3G handset and Tokyo based I-play’s “The Fast and the Furious” took Best Made for Mobile Game. See the full category list and winners after the jump.

Japan Mobile Industry News Mash-up

It’s been a rather hectic few weeks here, as mentioned at the end of our latest WWJ Newsletter, so we thought a chocolate covered bundle of tidbits would be in order today. With 3GSM running this week in Barcelona, on top of the usual post January speed cycle, we’ve clipped over a dozen highlights together for a sweetheart ‘Valentines Eve’ post chalk full of wireless news goodies collected over the last little while, just for you after the jump.

Obon Holiday Season in Japan

You may have noticed that we’re experiencing a quiet news period here with the summer holiday and war-time-memorial anniversary season in full swing. There are a handful of wireless notes after the log in that we clipped over the last few days and more international (Japan-related) stories coming through again later today. Yoroshiku!

DoCoMo Brings Blackberry to Japan. Who Cares?

DoCoMo Brings Blackberry to Japan. Who Cares?Last Thursday, NTT DoCoMo announced they would deploy the super-popular BlackBerry email device, made by Canadian firm Research in Motion (RIM), in Japan, in autumn 2006. At first glance, the news is pretty interesting.

One media report stated that “RIM stands to make potentially more money per customer with the DoCoMo deal by marketing its BlackBerrys in addition to its service.” Until recently, Japan lacked a decent, usable email device targeting corporate users.

Willcom has been offering Sharp’s super-cool Zero3, a Windows mobile OS device that has been flying off the shelves since the end of 2005, but it’s a consumer/prosumer device that is sold direct to the street and its POP/SMTP email capability doesn’t integrate (easily) into a corporate server.

[The full text of this article is available, for free, as an exclusive column contributed to the Wireless-Watch Community. — Eds]

Mobikyo KK Launches Wireless-Watch.com – Mobile Media Publisher Platform

Mobikyo K.K. today announces the public launch of the Wireless-Watch Community (W-W.Com), a dynamically updated website aggregating high-caliber news and commentary from mobile experts, industry watchers and publishers worldwide. The W-W.Com platform enables established and respected thought leaders to contribute their analysis and insight to a multi-market channel that is on track to become the Web’s most comprehensive resource of independent wireless related information.

Mobikyo K.K. Launches Wireless-Watch.com - Mobile Media Publishers Platform

W-W.Com launches with more than twenty registered community publishers representing a deep cross section of the most credible and insightful reporting on day-to-day developments in mobile and wireless technology, business models, strategies, applications, terminals, convergence and Internet. “The concept is to gather talented regional mobile media publishers into a single portal to raise the online exposure for all, creating a custom, up-to-date news feed and offering dedicated content that will become a daily destination for the industry worldwide,” said Daniel Scuka, chief editor for Mobikyo’s Wireless Watch Japan media site.

All content coming into the system is retained with full click-through to the original source location and the process is entirely automated with no editorial filtering or control. “Following the famous i-mode model, we have built a critical-mass content platform with a generous revenue-share structure that provides a valuable opportunity for publishers and generates a unique offering for our site visitors,” said Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, representative director for Mobikyo.