On Fri, 28 Dec 2001, Michael Turner wrote:
> My understanding of the Strand comment is that i-mode is a "failure"
> from an ideological perspective: you basically need a near-monopoly
> walled garden to make it work. Which is considered evil, evil. And that
> might just be for starters.
Uh...sorry for getting a bit lost here, but I've been hearing about
this "walled garden" a lot, and I was wondering if someone could
explain it to me.
I understand that on the regular web there is no "walled garden,"
right? So when I install my Yahoo DSL service and discover that
the setup program they gave me made Yahoo my browser's home page,
I can go and change that by typing in a new URL. (Or I could just
click on Yahoo-provided links.)
So when I get my new Docomo keitai, and I bring up the "shortcuts"
menu or whatever, I see in front of me a selection named "I-mode
menu" which pulls up Docomo's i-mode menu web page. This one looks
pretty similar to a Yahoo page; a bunch of links and whatnot.
Now what exactly was stopping me from chosing the "Enter URL" link
instead of the "I-mode menu" link, typing in a new URL, and going
wherever I want to? Heck, if I make that URL into a bookmark, it's
about as convenient as going to the I-mode menu.
Oh, wait; maybe it was the billing system. When I go out on to the
regular web, folks can bill me in a multitude of different ways;
take my credit card, use PayPal, send me a bill, and so on. But
nothing is stopping i-mode sites from doing exactly the same thing.
Certainly the option of billing someone via their telephone bill
doesn't exist on the web, but that doesn't close off any of the
other avenues. If that's the "walled garden," the web has the same
walled garden as well, except for the fact that it's empty. That
would lead one to the conclusion that the web just as closed as
i-mode, and missing a billing option to boot. Oops...did I get
that right?
As for the other stuff about profit vs. loss of business vs. being
driven by competitors into having an i-mode site, well, I don't
see how this is any different from anything else that doesn't
directly generate revenue, and this is something businesses deal
with all the time. The JR folks just installed a new escalator in
Shibuya station, and I can't imagine that it's earning them a lot
of direct revenue. Yet, oddly enough, nobody's going around talking
about whether escalators are a "success" or a "failure." Nor can
I seem to find any references to the "escalator bubble"....
cjs
--
Curt Sampson <cjs_at_cynic.net> +81 90 7737 2974 http://www.netbsd.org
Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light. --XTC
Received on Sat Dec 29 10:40:30 2001