Tony,
> After all, no successful wireless data service
> has ever been planned. Major successes like i-mode
> in Japan and SMS in the Philippines (and
> increasingly in the rest of the world) have happened
> more or less by accident.
Although it is true that DoCoMo was surprised by the sheer scale of
i-mode's success (well, everybody was), they of course have planned this
service precisely and in advance -- from the types of content and the
portal menu they would offer, the technologies they would adopt, the
design and functions the handsets should have, up to the unique billing
agency system that allows official content providers to easily charge
subscribers for accessing their i-mode content.
Complex services like this don't happen unplanned and the fact that
i-mode looks so simple from the outside has been planned to actually, as
i-mode was meant to be simple and easy to use for consumers and content
providers.
What you indeed cannot plan is if and how much your service will become
a hit -- you can only anticipate. DoCoMo has been very cautious about
this at the beginning, which is a good thing if you don't want to raise
expectations you might not be able to meet later on.
I can only recommend to read the books written by two of the major
creators behind i-mode, Mari Matsunaga ("The i-mode incident") and
Takeshi Natsuno ("The i-mode strategy"). Both books (in Japanese only so
far) describe the thinking behind and the genesis of i-mode in great
detail and provide firsthand facts and valuable background information.
Hope this helps,
Andrea
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Sat May 12 07:15:21 2001