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NTT DoCoMo Buys Into Tower Records Japan

NTT DoCoMo Buys Into Tower Records JapanIn a deal that puts a new spin on mobile music promotion in the Japanese market, DoCoMo announced a partnership with Tower Records Japan opting to buy 42 percent of the music retailer for 12.8 billion yen ($109 million). Scheduled to go through by late November, the deal will make DoCoMo Tower’s single largest shareholder. The music retailer operates 78 Tower Records stores and 31 Wave music outlets. Tower’s motto in Japan is "The Best Place to Find Music" but will DoCoMo find it the best place to create musical revenue?

Taking the stage at a Tokyo press conference November 8th, Takeshi Natsuno, senior vice president and managing director of NTT DoCoMo’s multimedia services department, and Hiroyuki Fushitani, president and chief executive officer of Tower Records Japan, gave the press few details on their upcoming fusion of telecom and music marketing. Not surprisingly, projects center around DoCoMo’s Osaifu Ketai (mobile wallet) platform for 3G handsets. Users will be able to wave their mobile phones over displays at Tower stores to download coupons or purchase CDs, picking them up at the sales counter on their way out. From this winter phones equipped with DoCoMo’s ToruCa (toru, capture; Ca, card) information-capture service will include Tower reader/writer units to download news on favorite artists, special offers from music labels, ticket reservations, and other music-related information. Tower’s popular redeemable purchase point system will also migrate onto mobile phones.

KDDI's New Trio of 3G handsets

KDDI's New Trio of 3G handsets Japan’s KDDI is promoting three new handsets coming out later this month that they believe mix fun with functionality for a package of business and entertainment features.

The W33SA from Sanyo, W32T by Toshiba and Kyocera’s A5515K each pack a push-to-talk style function. The trio of handsets comes equipped with Hello Messenger, a live audio-chat style service for up to five people that supports voice, image and text simultaneously. Twelve original cartoon-style avatars by well-known Japanese illustrator Kohei Yamashita will frolic on screen as stand-ins for chat members who can type or talk through the conversation over the handsets.

Targeted at young, female users, chat members register each other’s number in their handset to get started. Prices for the service of course vary depending on if subscribers have a flat rate package or not. If not then there is a charge incurred for sending photos or data. A special introductory rate for the audio portion of Hello Messenger until April, for example, will be 1.05 yen per 20 seconds. Scheduled to start service in late November.

KDDI Announces Digital TV, Group-Chat Phone

KDDI have just announced two new WIN 3G models: the W33SA (Sanyo) and the W32T (Toshiba). The Sanyo is, according to the company, the world’s first commercial phone to feature digital TV reception, via the carrier’s new ‘EZ Television’ digi TV service. Using the onboard GPS-powered EZ Navi Walk navigation system, a digital TV broadcast can automatically deliver instructions on how to find a specific location. The phones can also do "PTT-like" group chat and voice. Users can also search the title of any background music playing in a TV broadcast. Details after log-in.

NTT DoCoMo Unveils 3G Push-To-Talk Phones

NTT DoCoMo Unveils 3G Push-To-Talk PhonesNTT DoCoMo have just the new 902i-series of 3G FOMA handsets, featuring the new "PushTalk" walkie-talkie-style communication service. PushTalk will run over the 3G packet communication network and will allow phones to be used like walkie-talkies for simultaneous, one-way communication from one 902i user to as many as four other 902i users. The service will be launched in the near future concurrently with the 902i-series. DoCoMo said they are planning to waive communications charges (5.25 yen for each one-way call) through the end of December 2005.

The announcement confirms recent rumours (reported on WWJ) that the giant carrier would market a walkie-talkie-style service, already popular in the US, to defend falling market share and respond to flat-rate voice and data products offered by KDDI/au, Vodafone Japan and Willcom.

KDDI to Buy Tokyo Electric Unit

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.

Cellphone Weather Girl Auditions

A total of 32 women, hoping to become presenters for a video-based cell-phone weather service, gathered at KDDI’s Designing Studio showroom in Tokyo’s Harajuku district. Final auditions for the Kanto region’s “Weather News” service began on Monday when KDDI selected their short-list of just 7 from the 1,034 people who had submitted written applications. Online voting to choose the two winning candidates will be carried out 12-25 October.