Saw this in USA Today, March 30th, 2006, and caught my eye: DoCoMo sells no services in the US, but is advertising.
This ad was also picked up but Fukumimi and MobileCrunch.
March 2006 Archives
CNET Japan article on venture alliances mentioning Lunascape who've tied up with Toyota to distribute a Toyota-themed browser, and Jig.jp a java-built mobile browser.
The browser market is very different in Japan.
Firefox 2 seen in the wild...
What, you weren't instructed by your boss to level up a warrior for the guild?
The day may not be far off when companies receive résumés that include a line reading "level 60 tauren shaman in World of Warcraft."
The savviest employers will get the message.
The SF Chronicle covers the mess that is Sony's Metreon in San Francisco.
"It was supposed to be a place where you couldn't tell where the entertainment ended and the retail began," Bryant said. "I truly believed in it 100 percent."
That is, until Metreon opened for business.
"What got created," Bryant said with undisguised bitterness, "was a shopping mall with gated attractions that you had to pay to get into. It wasn't very fun, and the public reacted to that."
On one level, the story of Metreon's rise and fall is the story of what happens when visionary ideas collide with the realities of the business world.
On a more basic level, it's the story of what happens when corporate powers-that-be decide, as they so often do, to place short-term gain ahead of long-term investments.
"Sony started cutting our budget almost as soon as we opened," Bryant said. "They decided within six months of opening that they didn't want to be in the land development business after all."
Metreon's shattered dreams [sfgate.com]
The alpha version of Firefox 2, which is called Bon Echo until the official release, is now available for download and testing.
Still alpha code but the Lightning calendar extension has been released for Thunderbird.
Steven Towns of The Japan Stock Blog notes the Nikkei's coverage of Mozilla Japan's movements in Japan.
The Japan Stock Blog � Watch Out Microsoft — Firefox Eyes Expansion in Japan (MSFT)
Very, very good read.
For my Silicon Valley friends.
What I did this weekend.
I urge all customers of who purchased affected CDs from SonyBMG to visit the EFF site and claim your settlement.
"21_21 Design Sight" is a design facility in Tokyo which will be at the currently-being-built Tokyo Midtown complex in Roppongi. The directors of the facility are fashion designer Issey Miyake, graphic designer Taku Satoh, and product designer Naoto Fukusawa. The architect of the building itself is Tadao Ando. 21_21 Design Sight is scheduled to open in 2007.
It will be not so much a museum as a research center for design, a place for thinking about design, and a place where things are actually made. The aim is to share views and ideas with the many parties involved in design, starting with designers and including companies, craftsmen and engineers, as well as consumers, and to launch a movement to foster interest in, and greater understanding of design.
Note, technorati has no links to this site yet. I'll be tracking it to see how popular it is in the Japanese blogosphere.
I was supposed to go to SXSW to help with the filming of this with Joi, but I am too busy with my job. But it looks like Justin and Merci did a great job and I'm looking forward to more of this from Joi. He gets to travel to so many places and meet so many interesting people, it's great that he will be sharing his travel and conversations with more people on his new TV show later this year.
The Japan Investor has some nice commentary on JAL and how the CEO is being kicked out after not even a year for poor results.
I hope and pray that Japanese management will get better, but there are very few good managers in Japan who don't come from the "consensus" school of management.
What is clear from the experience is that Japan is beginning to recognize and react to the fact that consensus choices for management are not always the best choices. In JAL's case, the movement against Shinmachi began with a major shareholder, but then spread to other senior managers within the group. In baseball terms, its as if one of the team's owners expressed displeasure with the head coach, and the opinion was backed by other coaches that supposedly were there to support the head coach, and even the players. Yet corporate governance by shareholders, senior managers and employees within the company is still rare in Japan, it has been a fact of life for baseball teams in Japan for years. In other words, if a head coach were unable to produce a championship team within a couple of years, he was replaced by another coach.
TJI [The Japan Investor] believes this will increasingly occur in Japan's corporate world, i.e., if a CEO is unable to deliver the goods in the terms of major shareholders and other stakeholders, he has a real risk of being replaced. While detractors claim that this will lead to more short-term management strategies, TJI suspects it will produce an increasing number of managers with a "hot hand" that can produce a few years of good results, only to be eventually overtaken by other, more dynamic competitors. This is a classic symptom of a mature market. In other words, as the "pie" is no longer growing, Japanese companies increasingly have to be able and willing to take share from their competitors to produce growth.
The companies to watch are the ones that, like JAL, are under enormous pressure to turn around because they employ many thousands of people or they have a long history. Sanyo. Daiei. Sony. etc.
So crazy!
Michael Jackson hawking Suzuki scooters!!
Look at him then vs. now. :(
Very funny to anyone who plays Warcraft :)
ANOTHER STUNNER!!
Check out the track list - Fleep is on FIRE!
01: Mink – Beautiful (Jazztronik Remix) [Avex Records Japan]
02: Cjieko Kunbara – Spring Rain (Re-Edited by Danny Krivit) [Sony Music Japan]
03: Penn & Chus – Esperanza (Lost Heroes Cosmix Dub) [Solu Records]
04: Franck Roger – When Animals Manifest [Realtone Records]
05: DJ Mochizuki – My Pleasure (Mo Piano Remix) [Loop Sounds Japan]
06: Sade – Earth Song (Wonderland Remix) [Whitel Label]
07: Manoo and Francois A – The Deep [BuzzinFly Records]
08: Flow – Truth & Sunshine (Eatbassmix05) [Urbantorque]
09: Angie Stone – I Wasn’t Kidding (Shelter Vocal) [Underground Access]
10: Bah Samba Featuring The Fatback Band – Let The Drums Speak [BKO Productions]
11: Kloud 9 – So Many Reasons (RP’s Club Mix) [Copyright Recordings]
12: Soul Central – Need You Know (Extended Club Mix) [Defected Records]
Well, it had to happen. My blog is now a "Web message board."
Which it is for about 1500 Sony Connect users....
