> those of us not in japan see lovely pictures of imode screens and imagine
> DoCoMo is a multimedia wonderland with transactions and all sorts of stuff
> like that. security. mobile ecommerce (i need to buy some tickets or
> whatever). great animated graphics. all the things that wap and
> 3g marketing
> hype promised.
I certainly agree the hype out there outweighs the reality, and I think will
be rebalanced with other venues out there soon enough. Do note that unlike
the US, for many Japanese the internet = i-mode. This is their first
exposure to the internet - think of the giddiness and promised land thinking
around the internet in the US years ago.
As other readers would point out Japanese content sites are much more
consumer, entertainment, and fun focused than the US and European sites on
mobile devices. Seems that the market or perceived market in the US was
oriented around business use.
As for the devices and technology, sure the mobile phones here had color and
better form-factors, but underlying technology-wise there is nothing
special. cHTML might be easier to adapt to than WML but is hardly the
reason for mobiles success here.
>
> i wonder whether we might see a DoCoMo 'backlash' soon. Or have I
> missed the
> point?
I'll admit that I'm tired of the over-hype around i-mode. It's going to go
places but so are many other internet venues. If there's a backlash I would
think we'll see it in the investing community. The mobile device is here to
stay - just remains a question as to who and how many players are going to
be able to make positive cashflow on this medium.
---
Jonathan Shore
CTO
E-Publishing Group K.K.
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Fri Feb 9 10:48:06 2001