I agree with Juergen. I have heard the same arguments in regards to Docomo's
provisions to deal with potential problems with enjokosai use in
community-based sites. BUT - Is ruling out community sites the answer to
this? I don't think so. It probably wasn't their main objective.
I hate to be presumptuous but I think Docomo initially have been protective
over sharing a community power-base for other reaons. What if the community
formed was strong and edged towards a lot of non-official sites? Or for
other reasons did not support the business model? What if the community came
to have true influence in their own right? What if these communities
destroyed or tainted i-mode's brand.
How much of Docomo's success with i-mode is about branding? Branding enables
distinction from competitors. If I am offered the basic functionality by all
carriers I will be looking at what else distinguishes them.
Surely Docomo is better off from their point by having the whole i-mode
community dependent and willing to cooperate with Docomo - rather than
having to be partially dependent on a large - official - community tailored
site.
Before Docomo had secured a brand-name and market leadership it was probably
best to keep tight control of content for official sites. It will be
interesting to see where their strategy will lead to from now in regards to
community-based sites. It may be the evolution of community-based sites that
come to show us where the next killer applications will exist for the mobile
Internet.
Sometimes I can't help but think it is a pity that this group of experts
that we have amongst us can be a little bit too generous towards Docomo as a
company. Now we all realise Docomo reads this. And some of you may have
something to lose by talking negatively about Docomo, but it would be nice
to see some answers that read between the lines of press releases from
Docomo.
With that said, I think Docomo does have a nice business model - and some
smart people controling the direction of i-mode - but they have this in part
because of the tight control the keep over the community of developers and
users - which is even relected in this mailing list.
-stuart
----- Original Message -----
From: "Juergen Specht" <js@nooper.com>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 12:53 AM
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: Communities not allowed
> > So when i-mode got launched, they (DoCoMo or NTT, I'm not sure exactly
where
> > the decision originated) decided they didn't want to risk any person to
> > person communication which could be altered into similar nefarious
purposes,
> > because they didn't want the technology to get blamed for it.
> > Hope that answers your question.
>
> So why is Imahima than an official site now? Anybody really think
> that you call yourself 'free for Karaoke right now in Shibuya'? ;)
>
> Seems that DoCoMo somewhat is more tolerant or they have
> no phantasy...at least I would call Imahima an 'person to person'
> site.
>
> Juergen
>
>
>
> [ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
>
>
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Tue Feb 13 19:08:27 2001