Understanding The Japanese Wireless Market

Brent writes "In this installment of 'Secrets of the wireless elite,' you'll learn about the prevalent technologies in the Japanese market. In addition, it shows why publishing Web sites for wireless -- while not technically revolutionary -- is where the market is right now."

Tip #1 (from the article)

[GreyWolf3000]

Don't use a lot of graphics. They take time and cost money to download, and they're not cached so they have to be downloaded again and again. If you do need to use graphics, make them as small and lightweight as possible.

I sure wish people would do this for normal websites :) This is another good reason why honestly all websites should have a text-only version (on top of links).

Do you think this could be used for dating?

[thened]

They didn't seem to write about this at all. The real wireless market in Japan is dating sites. That is what all of the spam you get on your phone is advertising. So who uses these dating systems? Lonely guys and girls who are looking for financial support in return for quality companionship. Need to know what she is going to look like? Ask her to take a picture with her phone and send it to you first. The first killer app for any medium is always adult oriented.

Re:Do you think this could be used for dating?

[Anarchos]

Yeah that is completely wrong. KIDS are the ones who will adopt new technology the quickest; adults will be very slow to incorporate technology into their social networks. Just look at the instant messaging use, as an example. IM is entirely integrated into the teenage dating structure yet adult usage is abysmal.

Re:Do you think this could be used for dating?

[Tackhead]

> The real wireless market in Japan is dating sites. That is what all of the spam you get on your phone is advertising. So who uses these dating systems?

Judging from Japanese pr0n, the users are primarily octopi, squid, and other minions of Great Cthulhu.

How does wireless fit into this again?

Contents and Payment

[e8johan]

The reason the Japaneese use the wireless media so much is because they have good contents (in the meaning worth paying for) and a good, centralized system for distibuting the micro-payments to the contents providers.
This is the difference between the Japanees wireless market and the European and US markets. Why is this so? Because NTT DoCoMo has realized that they can't expect good contents if they take all the profit as our (EU+US) mobile service providers try to do.

Re:Contents and Payment

[chris_7d0h]

I'm not sure this theory bears water either. If it is as you stated, why hasn't GPRS/3G been a hit creating opportunities for a bunch of content providers who can make a living?

Most of Europe (all of it?) has metered rates / cost per minute, for landlines. Here people are using the phones to talk with each other. SMS is used mostly by kids as they have pre-paid SIM cards without a subscription but instead having very high minute rates. Another reason (albeit minor) might be because it gives them something to do on the bus or the subway while listening to their minidiscs.

Anyway, I don't buy the argument that minute rates would be the explanation as Europe is in the exact same situation as Japan in that regard.

Re:Contents and Payment

[chris_7d0h]

Not entirely, the primary reason for the Japanese to be using their mobile phones to access network services is because a japanese home in average is considerably smaller than homes in the western world. They simply don't have much space to put computers and stuff. The mobile phone has become the platform of choice in Japan because the number of computers per capita is considerably lower than in the west while the japanese still have the same need for exchanging information as we have. Also playing in might be the cultural difference (which I have not yet investigated in any depth). One can wonder why the japanese cartoons have such a tremendous cultural impact in Japan and not in Europe for example.. There is something on the cultural side worth looking in to as well.

This is partly the reason why the Docomo didn't hit in the west and why half of the telecom sector is heading towards bankruptcy. They thought it was the content and spent quadrillions on 3G licenses, while it in fact was other factors no one apparently looked at, driving the wide adoption in Japan.

Problem with Wireless

[Joseph Lam]

The tips and tricks in the article have been widely known and practised by many wireless developer for long time. The problems with wireless apps outside Japan are:
1. The dot-com burst
2. Poorly designed spec, e.g. WAP. And varying level of compliance by handsets.
3. Slow and inconvenient access.(Packet-basd network e.g. GPRS/W-CDMA might hel
3. Ridiculous pricing. In some places it is often much cheaper and more convenient to just call up a restaurant/cinema for enquiry/booking.

J2ME has no floating point, either

[mparaz]

"Unlike J2ME, there's no floating point arithmetic in DoCoMo's DOJA spec, so when I need to do calculations I use the MathFP class (for fixed-point calculations) written by Onno Hommes."

Sorry but the J2ME CLDC doesn't support floating point, either [microjava.com]. Isn't that a power consumption issue?