I wrote:
> > The Minitel comparison was also made with i-mode itself, but didn't
> > seem to slow that phenomenon down much.
> Actually, Jakob Nielsen (whom I presume you're citing here, cf.
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010107.html) was lambasting WAP.
I wasn't citing anyone in particular, just pointing out that comparisons
have been made. A google search on "+i-mode Minitel" bears this out.
> Let's draw a table:
>
> Minitel L-mode WAP i-mode
> Fixed line Yes Yes No No
> Per-minute Yes Yes Yes No
> pricing
> Walled garden Yes Yes Yes No
> Clunky device Yes Yes Yes Yes
For Walled Garden, it looks like "Yes *and* No" for
i-mode and potentially for L-mode as well. And, as has
been pointed out, "Fixed line" isn't such a cut-and-dried
distinction when you already have cordless phones as
practically the norm.This leaves the question of whether
NTT will make billing adjustments on per-minute pricing
for L-mode accesses (not rocket science exactly) to
bring charges roughly in line with i-mode costs. They
might not have to, if your average L-mode transaction
is cheaper than the voice call. Companies running call-
centers might even offer rebates on the time-billing,
because L-mode represents labor savings for them. And
it might represent savings on the user side anyway, to
be able to rapidly scan displayed menus instead of
listening to "press 1 to hear your account balance,
press 2 to...."
In short, I don't see these distinctions as necessarily
being quite as stark as you paint them, and there
seem to be other possible advantages here.
> I think that with per-minute pricing and the unbreakable walled garden
> approach NTT is shooting itself in the foot very badly. Yes, the
> idea of sneaking in the Internet via your trusty old landline phone
> as outlined in the Japan Inc article is interesting, but is there
> any advantage to getting L-mode instead of i-mode?
How about:
- a phone you can cradle between your neck and your shoulder
- phone screen that you can look at while listening on the handset
- a bigger screen (or more potential for that, anyway)
- FAX interfaces so the you can print i/L-mode content
(perhaps in more printer-friendly formats?)
- not having to worry about battery life?
> ....Much has been
> made of the fact that most i-mode fanatics seem to be young people
> with an affinity for cool gadgets and lots of money and time to burn,
> whereas L-mode's target audience seems to be closer akin to sedentary
> grannies who are afraid of computers and cellphones...
In a country projecting a dwindling number of the former and already
seeing a rapid growth in the latter, can you blame NTT for trying?
> > And Minitel was very
> > popular in its time - people ran up huge bills just like they do now
> > with keitai; and a lot of Japanese may never have a home computer.
>
> Minitel was very popular in its time -- in France. And only France,
> although similar systems were tried in many places. One reason for
> Minitel's popularity was the lack of alternatives, for a long time
> French government policy was to oppose public Internet access at all
> costs, and by the time they finally did they were years behind and
> Minitel was obsolete.
The point is: people didn't reject it outright - it had enormous appeal
*despite* these drawbacks. If NTT can position L-mode as a
bridging technology to the internet, as well as "internet for people
who don't want internet", it will fulfill every dire prophecy that the
Japanese upstart telecom companies currently fear. It's certainly
not either/or at this point. Internet is happening here - it's just a
question of how L-mode-type services might fit in - either
substituting or complementing.
I can see one major advantage of L-mode over regular internet
access: not having to go through all that friggin' modem configuration
just to talk to your ISP. You'd already be on. That's something that
helped sell i-mode itself.
-m
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Fri Apr 27 07:34:50 2001