(keitai-l) Re: Long shot, but is short messaging a thousand years old?

From: Philip Sidel <psidel_at_iuj.ac.jp>
Date: 08/10/03
Message-Id: <5.2.1.1.0.20030810174631.00b131e8@mail.iuj.ac.jp>
Juergen,

Great point.  Innis and McCluhan said similar things a few years back. The 
difference that I see between what you've outlined below and keitai-based 
SMS is the further freedoms from Location and Time that the keitai 
brings.  Anytime, anywhere access keeps users a lot better in touch and 
informed that previous technologies.  Additionally, it was difficult to 
spam people with messengers....or could you if you were really, really rich?

--Philip

At 10:40 AM 8/10/2003 +0900, you wrote:

>I just finished to read "The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon":
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231073372/104-8612275-9004758?v=glance
>
>As I mentioned before in this list, the book reads like the very first
>Japanese blog I came across...and you have to acknowledge that this
>book was written about around 980 or so, makes it more than a thousand
>years old.
>
>Sei Shonagon served as "lady in waiting" (A lady of a court appointed
>to serve or attend a queen, princess, or royal duchess) to the empress
>and wrote down stories of her daily life, observations etc.
>Very interesting to read.
>
>But what does this have to do with Keitai-L?
>
>Hm, this is maybe a long shot, but pretty much everybody at this time
>and with enough status/money/education at hand permanently exchanged
>"short messages" with each other.
>
>Basically the book is full of descriptions that somebody writes a
>short message, often a poem, and sends it via messenger to his
>friends/lovers/acquaintances and waits for a reply. It seems like it
>was a fashion to send more short messages than long letters and
>always a quick reply was expected.
>
>What else do I know about Japanese history, but this all sounds that
>some things never really changed...short (Keitai) messages (eg: email)
>via messenger (eg: ISP/mobile ISP) awaiting a quick reply are a
>commonplace these days.
>
>So does it mean that this was predictable from Japanese history or
>am I very much off with this? :)
>
>Juergen
>--
>Juergen Specht, CTO, Nooper.com - Mobile Services Inc., Tokyo, Japan
>i-mode & FOMA consulting, development, testing:  http://nooper.co.jp
>Check Nooper, your little intelligent email buddy: http://nooper.com
>
>
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Received on Sun Aug 10 12:00:56 2003