Hello list members,
From what I have seen from the responses on this topic, the low number
startles most people. Unfortunately, no one seems to actually have any data
that would imply otherwise. Once again: my numbers could be so, so wrong.
And we all hope they are, being in the business.
I do not have all the answers, but maybe Juergen and r e n's friend at
DoCoMo do. They have made the tactical decision not to share it with this
list. In the case of nooper.com, I fully understand. It buys them their
sushi. In the case of DoCoMo, well, I do have a slight idea of what their
priorities are in this matter :-)
Additional problems:
4) DoCoMo indicates that 90% of their users are pressing the i-mode button
at least once a week. But how does that translate to people *knowing* what
that button does? And couldn't they just be pressing it incidentally, not
actually using any of the services? Also, is the email function accessed
separately from the i-mode button?
5) It could very well be that the questions asked in the Hakuhodo research
were confusing. I can imagine them standing on that Shibuya street corner
(natsukashii na) and asking people:
(a) Do you have an internet-enabled phone?
(b) Do you use the internet fuctions on your phone?
Question (a) is not that hard to answer. Just look at the type of the
phone... and voila. But for the (b) question: If it were not formulated
correctly, Hakuhodo would end up getting the wrong responses...
Why?
Because people (and certainly people over 40) may not *realize* they are
using their phone to access the internet. "That button over there, labelled
"i-mode", does that *really* bring me onto the internet?"
Moreover, the whole point of DoCoMo (and J-Phone et al) marketing was to
actually trick people into thinking it was just "another feature of the
phone"... are you catching my drift? Respondants may not have made the link
[i-mode=www-server=internet] like we so easily do.
On the other hand; if Hakuhodo *did* ask people if they are using i-mode (or
J-Sky, or...) services on their phones, their data should be correct. Now if
we only had access to the exact questioneer Hakuhodo used... I tried their
website, but couldn't find anything.
Could people on this list and living in Japan give us a first-hand
impression on how often hey see people walking the streets, using their
i-mode phones? I stopped believing quotes from ZDNet reporters a long, long
time ago, and they claimed everyone is doing it (but this would include
email-usage I suppose)
... Final thought: No, Rod, I am not German. Don't ever tell a Dutchman he
is German. Before you know it, he'd be sending you flying cows... and you
don't want that with current European livestock conditions, now do you ;-)
Regards,
Victor
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Wed Mar 28 17:06:09 2001