Europe's i-mode a Bust for Japanese Content Plays?
“Take a look at this list,” says Arjen van Blokland, pointing to the top ten i-mode site listing at imode.nl. “Not one of them is Japanese,” states Arjen in a voice that betrays evident relief that 104.com didn’t get involved in European i-mode. He asks, Where’s Cybird?, illustrating that fact that the Japanese content producers and aggregators — like Cybird, Index, MTI, and others — have seen signal unsuccess at penetrating the baby i-modes overseas. He may have a good point — given that it should have been the Japanese that taught the rest of the i-mode world how to do content right.
There’s a tremendous amount of initial wireless LAN network activity going on in Japan right now, but it’s still too early to say how WLAN will affect 3G. One thing is certain however: licensed-spectrum carriers are looking closely at WLAN to determine whether the technology will disrupt their carefully knit 3G network, wireless Internet, and data revenue plans. We speak with an industry insider on a recent WLAN hotspot trial conducted by a major mobile telco. But large carriers and others thinking about launching hotspot networks shouldn’t worry about finding content. First, solve the billing, roaming, and security problems — then content providers will beat a path to your door… just as happened with, oh…, for example, i-mode. 
The Streaming Media Japan 2002 show was held last month, and we dutifully trooped over to cover the excitement, certain in our belief that mobile players would be out in force. There wasn’t a single carrier there — nada, zilch — much less any of the big-name content players. Isn’t Japan’s 3G future supposed to be all about streaming content delivered via thin air? Guess not..?!?
Takaharu Mita is just a regular guy with a DoCoMo 3G videophone — but like many early-adopters, he’s got no one with whom to hold video calls. In March, he posted his number on his “FOMA Diary” Web site and invited the world to call — anytime. Well, the world responded, and Mita-san has got a lot to say about videophones, Big D, and how society’s gonna change…
In the first part of our Killer Interview Series with one of Tokyo’s contrarian telecoms analysts, we find out what happens to data ARPU when price-insensitive, heavy-volume users migrate to new services (like Java). The answer? It’s not a pretty sight, and the same may be in store for 3G. Plus, we cover ARPU stats, compare FOMA data usage to 2G, and reveal what generates the most packet traffic (think “self-generated content”).
The phone is still not an “IT sale” in Japan, but we talk to one mobile application developer that is trying to effect change — and is having some success.