Can we get this discussion under control? Daniel Scuka's
article suggested that UNOFFICIAL i-mode sites were
unprofitable, not i-mode sites generally. And it's not even
really about that. Read it again.
<rant>
[From someone who should know better]
> Japan Inc. would be well advised not to let their own depressed
> attitudes infect the rest of what is otherwise a booming industry.
Oh, yes, yes, by all means, let's have an opinion quarantine.
And the first propaganda salvo, to start herding the diseased
pariahs into the quarantine area and separating out the uninfected:
exaggerate the symptoms of what might not even be a disease,
much less an infectious one.
"AH-OOGAH...AH-OOGAH....Truth outbreak! Truth
outbreak! Please move upwind until we can hose down
the area. Thank you. <squawk-bump-click>."
Really, though, the Japanese wireless web industry is pretty safe
from dastardly memes emanating from small-circulation gaijin
publications, if you ask me. It's even pretty safe from
honest journalism. Not to worry. Seriously.
</rant>
My only criticism of what Daniel has to say in the "Dirty
Little Secrets" piece is that, to the extent that it implies that
we *should* be able to make money off wireless websites,
it's slightly naive. Making money off your website per se
is IN MOST CASES about as plausible as trying sell your
business cards at a mixer party. (I haven't found a bulk
discount rate that works yet, so I'm back to just handing
them out.)
The real business case for the wireless web, as it is for
virtually all computerization, is:
(1) cost reduction - "let's get our customers to do their own
order data entry; and automate some of our market research
and helpdesk functions"
and
(2) keeping up with the Joneses in terms of corporate
image and availability - i.e., "website as our digitally-extended
business card and/or company brochure - an additional
cost, not a revenue source."
NTT DoCoMo has engineered an intriguing exception
to this pattern, and Daniel's "Dirty Little Secrets"
anatomizes this exception quite competently. Including
its dangers. IMHO.
[Bizarrely, this person also writes]
> Regards,
With "regards" like these, who needs spitting?
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
P.S. No, I don't work for Japan Inc, nor LINC Media, nor anyone
affiliated with them, unless you count unsolicited (but sometimes
appreciated) advice to people who have written for Japan Inc.
Also: I am not a Communist, I am no longer a vegetarian, and while
I might be a homosexual, it's also possible that I only played one
on TV a few times.
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Received on Fri Sep 7 08:48:34 2001