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…
Convenience stores are ringing up a mountain of profit on something they don’t even have to keep in stock: bill paying. In fact, so many people now use convenience stores to pay utility bills and some taxes that the volume handled approaches that of Japan’s megabanks. Though the commission on each transaction is small — about the same 50- to 60-yen profit as on an onigiri rice ball — they add up. For example, Lawson Inc. recorded 6.77 bn yen in commissions for fiscal 2004.
Here’s a slick way for Philip Morris to tap into their customers, within the well-established pack a day distribution network, using mobile. Running from early September through the end of December, Marlboro cigarette packs will have a unique lotto number under the lid allowing registered members to win branded merchandise on the spot ranging from lighters and ball caps to larger weekly prize draws for jackets and mountain bikes. The grand prize trip to Italy for some hands-on F1 gear jamming!
Clearly an innovative approach to tap into, segment and reward the companies loyal base. While it’s not the first time they have run at ‘coupon code’ campaign, the QR driven approach – created by part of the same crew who earned a Golden Lion at Canne for Vidal Sassoon – this should definitely render more valuable meta data results than 1994. Watch the show&tell video [26mb – .mp4] to see the process in action.. 😎
Confirming the rumors of late August, KDDI Corp., Japan’s second-largest phone company, will buy the telecommunication unit of Tokyo Electric Power Co. for 127.5 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in stock to expand its Internet-based phone services and gain customers. Japanese telecom companies are seeking ventures with utilities companies to compete against former government monopoly NTT. KDDI will inherit PoweredCom’s more than 4,000 business customers, including Hewlett-Packard Japan, and 64,000 kilometers of fiber optic network infrastructure in the Tokyo area.
