The Mobile Contents Forum (MCF) is gearing up for the Mobidec 2007 conference again this year to be held on 27 November at the swanky Meguro Gajoen in Tokyo. Their stated focus topics for the popular annual industry event include; SEM, SEO, advertising, user-generated content, m-commerce and digital tv broadcasting for mobile. We’ve always enjoyed this gathering in years past and look forward to attending again in November!
We’re thrilled to announce the next MoMo Tokyo event, 22 October at the fabulous Designing Studio, will feature presentations from Dr. Hitomi Murakami, former executive director and principal research engineer at KDDI’s R&D labs, and Tomi Ahonen, best-selling author and strategy consultant for digital convergence and advanced mobile telecoms. Both gentlemen are long-time industry insiders and the evening promises to be extremely informative and very well-attended.
Yet another successful event for in the massive Makuhari Messe convention center saw almost 200,000 pass through the gates for TGS 2007. Aaaah.. the chaos, the crowds, the girls games.. how could we resist! A sunny Saturday afternoon brought out the kids – for family day – and plenty of Cosplay actors were swarming between show halls to pose down for the camera’s. But the real action, coming from every major player in the gaming world, was inside. WWJ has been on-hand for this event pretty much every year since 2002, with the first-to-web video of the Sony PSP in 2004, and this time out was perhaps the most impressive yet.
The obvious evolution on display was without a doubt the next gen. motion-sensor enabled Mega Games at the DoCoMo booth. While KDDI rolled-out the heavy armor with Metal Gear Solid and BioHazzard for mobile RPG products, the display which seems to have grabbed the most attention was from SoftBank Mobile. Thanks to Darth and the Tokyo StormTroopers, who un-leashed the new Star Wars PodRacer game, we were hooked from Go!
Red Herring Magazine awarded Mobile Healthcare Inc., a Japan-based global healthcare solutions provider offering real-time mobile solutions in the areas of chronic and lifestyle disease management, the Red Herring 100 Asia 2007 Award. Winners were selected from a pool of more than 500 applicants and nominations based in 16 countries including China, India, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Australia and Vietnam.
Tech-On has posted an interview with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., China’s leading telecom equipment manufacturer, who have set up an exhibit – for the first time ever in Japan – at this years Wireless Japan tradeshow. Huawei is one of the most technology-oriented companies in China with sales at an annual growth rate of 40% that are expected to surpass 1 trillion yen in 2007.
CESA posted an update yesterday regarding the Tokyo Game Show 2007 agenda with more details on their popular event scheduled for 20 – 23 September out at Makuhari Messe. They have secured 162 exhibitors, up from 148 last year, with companies coming from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Our video coverage from TGS 2006 has been one of the most popular programs on WWJ and there’s little doubt it will be another fantastic show this year as well. [video from the 2007 event now available Here -- eds]
Dentsu is on the short-list in the mobile advertising category at the 2007 Cannes Lions awards with their Comic Shogakukan campaign. According to this article on Adage, Media Lions jury President David Verklin said he was impressed by how much more advanced mobile marketing is outside the U.S., especially in Japan. “We were stunned by the Japanese approach to mobile,” he said.
Mobile Content Networks won a Meffy award in Monte Carlo for its popular FM Radio Music Search application which was launched on DoCoMo’s D903i in 2006. The Meffys Search and Discovery Award was a new category introduced this year to highlight the great work being done by companies to encourage people to discover and enjoy content on their handsets. Congats!
Mobikyo KK, publisher of Wireless Watch Japan, announced today it will co-host three popular events in co-operation with Expo Comm Wireless Japan 2007, Tokyo Big Sight, 18-20 July, the largest specialized trade show in Japan dedicated to wireless and mobile network technologies. With over 34,000 industry professionals and 180 exhibitors attending, Wireless Japan is the central meeting point for Asia’s wireless industry. See our video reports for the 2006 event Here
As 3G adoption exceeds 70 percent saturation in Japan, mobile ecosystem players are increasingly aiming to establish partnerships, tie-ups and business deals to deliver their products and services – as well as lessons learned – into emerging markets elsewhere. There has never been a better time for overseas companies to make valuable connections into Japan’s wireless industry and there has never been a better venue than Mobikyo KK’s stellar event line-up at Expo Comm Wireless Japan.
Qualcomm has announced that it will host the first-ever MediaFLO Conference in Tokyo to provide the latest information about their mobile broadcast solution. The event will take place on Friday, June 8 at 14:00 at the Hotel Okura with Omar Javaid, vice president, business development, Qualcomm MediaFLO Technologies, providing a global market status presentation. WWJ interviewed Ali Zamari, international business development manager for MediaFLO, at the Wireless Japan tradeshow last year.
