This discussion about VoIP/WLAN business models is fascinating (despite my
own stunningly long, ignorant contributions to it.) So is this branch
discussion on WLAN security.
I'm certainly going to start following these topics as a result.
However, there is, AFAIK, no Japanese handset implementing any such scheme.
To be sure, the Japanese are involved in the budding market for VoIP/WLAN
telephony, but there isn't much to work with at the moment.
If I remember right (Mika, help me out) there are over 700 keitai-l
subscribers right now. If I had just subscribed this week, I would have
hastily UNsubscribed by now, saying "wow, I don't have time for a
high-volume list in which only one posting in four [at best] directly
addresses the supposed subject area."
Before certain recent participants go off on me, I hasten to point out: Yes,
I contributed my own (arguably inflammatory and irrelevant) posts to these
recent threads, Yes, I have written personal e-mail to several of the
participants saying I really enjoyed what they wrote (an indirect
encouragement to continue), Yes, I have done much the same thing myself in
the past on other topics of questionable relevance. And therefore: No, I am
in no position to be lecturing anybody here about keitai-l list etiquette or
hygienic communication in general.
The source doesn't necessarily invalidate the message, however. (As long as
the source crawls abjectly enough -- read further on.)
I implore you: when posting, think about whether a significant percentage of
list members signed up to read something like what you're about to tell
them. Try to tie it to issues of Japanese mobile telephony wherever
possible. Consider pursuing discussions off-list -- you can always
summarize later, after asking the list if there's interest.
As an example of what *not* to do, go search the keitai-l archives for how I
(defensively) milked the discussion about whether mobile phones having
barcode readers was a mass-market "killer app".
I went on too long about an idea to which I had unconsciously become
overcommitted. (If, by "overcommitted" one can mean, "will talk anybody's
ear off about it." God forbid that I should actually *work* on anything.)
In retrospect I should have expended the effort in doing research to find
out what I now know: this idea is a non-starter in Japan, because Japan
isn't nearly as standardized as the U.S. when it comes to barcodes. Maybe
it's a promising engineering notion, but it was hopelessly poor market
research.
Enough mea culpas for you?
At the risk of fasol^H^H^Hile self-promotion, a model of laser-like topic
focus on a mailing list is on offer at
www.idiom.com/~turner/JEvaHz
Too focused (and too Japanese) for me. But we're currently over at the
other extreme.
Speaking of JEvaHz -- I've got to get back to it, since it's about the only
halfway-useful thing I do around here.
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
[ Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Thu Aug 16 08:06:38 2001