Victor,
Thank you for your comments. The article is not the only source of my
information as I have interviewed more than 50 firms related to the Japanese
mobile Internet and have ten more lined up for when I am in Tokyo in a few
weeks. This research includes conversations with many firms that have made
attempts but failed to become official sites. While we can argue about
whether they made sufficient efforts or not, it is obvious that the criteria
for becoming an official site have not been clear. This is why the Japanese
government recognized this as a problem and required NTT to release
guidelines about a month ago. But this is clearly not, nor should it be the
last time this issue will be debated. The issue about whether firms have
made sufficient efforts to become official sites sounds oddly similar to the
debates about trade between the US and Japan. For those who are not familiar
with these issues, there is a large body of literature on this subject of
which the most recent and best books are published by the Brookings
Institute. Although i-mode is not yet an important avenue of commerce, it is
becoming one. And as it becomes an important avenue of commerce, issues of
access will surface. I do not know the current US or European policies
towards access to the official i-mode menu. My point is that access to the
i-mode menu will become an issue in the future.
By the way, I am currently completing a book on the mobile Internet entitled
I am writing a book on the mobile Internet entitled: "The Mobile Internet:
How Japan's NTT Docomo has - and the rest of the world can - create positive
feedback between users, contents, and phones." For your information, I have
included a copy of the first chapter and table of contents. The book deals
with these and other related issues.
Best regards,
Jeff Funk
-----Original Message-----
From: JAPON.NET [mailto:web@japon.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 12:31 PM
To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
Cc: funk@rose.rokkodai.kobe-u.ac.jp
Subject: Re: (keitai-l) difficulties of becoming an official i-mode site
Jeff
A Note: The article does not explicitly mention that Virgin APPLIED to
become an official i-mode site before or after December. It says that AFTER
the Harajuku campaign was a failure, the marketing company WISHED it had
been on the menu. Understandable.
To be on the i-mode menu takes a lot of effort, for both common sense and
less clear reasons. If all companies that "whished" to be on the menu but do
little preparation where on it, it would certainly be crowded but of even
less value than today. After meeting with most European airlines I write
from experience.
At the EBC (European Business Community) eCommerce Committee I made a
presentation on "issues" related with Mobile Internet, including official
status access. This was in March 2000. If USTR was analyzing/concerned about
the mobile net then, they hid their interests rather well :-)
The Business Model/s and therefore Issues have since last year developed
beyond official menu access. Billing, Advertising, and the ever-present
Supplier Relations would come to mind. I would be interested in learning
about experiences also on these fields.
Vincent J. Luna, Director
--
JAPON.NET llc.: Making Your Company Visible in Japan
web_at_japon.net http://www.japon.net/web/
--
Vice-Chairman, eCommerce Committee
European Business Community 欧州ビジネス協議会
--
on 01.5.8 10:04 AM, Funk Jeffry Lee at funk@rose.rokkodai.kobe-u.ac.jp
wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> For those of you who are interested in the challenges of becoming an
> official i-mode site, here is an interesting article about virgin
airline's
> efforts to do so courtesy of a british airways colleague. Even more
> interestingly, I heard a rumor that northwest (the only foreign airline on
> the i-mode menu) became an official site through its 50 year relationship
> with japan air systems. Sounds as if crony capitalism is alive and well in
> Japan and it is only a matter of time (maybe its already happened) before
> some government (probably the US govt) claims that i-mode's unclear
> evaluation of sites is a non-tariff trade barrier.
>
> Jeff Funk
> Associate Professor
> Kobe University
> Research Institute on Economics and Business
>
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Tue May 8 07:00:22 2001