2006 was a great year for me. Hope it was for you too. Let's all work to make 2007 even better.
Happy New Year everyone!
Gen in Tokyo
December 2006 Archives
The Japanese subtitles are amusing.
Cyndi Lauper on TV in Japan, probably 1990s, probably a New Years Eve show.
Look at Meg Whitman's grimace. Ouch.
For eBay, It’s About Political Connections in China - New York Times
Related, of course:
EBay Is Expected to Close Its Auction Site in China - New York Times
In case anyone forgets how important community is to open source software, it's clear here.
Let this be a lesson for all of those who wish to partner with Redmond.
not my photo unfortunately but very cute.
As usual, required reading from Shin: Horiemon blames others for his predicament
This is very funny.
This blog is doing funny stuff with their date stamp too: " 二〇〇六年一二月一四日（木） 16：21 "
Joi Ito, who is on the board of both Mozilla Japan as well as the Mozilla Foundation, has just been named Chairman of Creative Commons.
This is just comedy.
Baidu is entering the Japan market. That's fine, understandable. But the reasons Baidu gives investors for it's Japan entry are positively ludicrous. China and Japan are not similar at all in terms of culture, online or offline.
The Beijing-based company cites its experience with non-English languages and similarities between Japanese and Chinese as a factor that will draw users in Japan.
I'm all for more competition in Japan. But this (claim of similarities between Japanese and Chinese) is sheer nonsense.
The analysts in Japan say that Baidu may need an auction platform and a mobile platform in order to compete against Yahoo! Japan. Sensible, seeing that Yahoo! Japan has all of these pieces. Baidu might be able to buy it's way into the Japanese auction market, but it won't be cheap. On the mobile side, I don't think NTT DoCoMo or KDDI would be interested in selling their businesses. So that leaves The Carlyle Group, who own 60% of Willcom. Somehow I don't think the Carlyle guys would sell Willcom for a price Baidu would pay. I could be wrong of course.
Japanese Tech Stock Weekly Report [seekingalpha.com]
Kimono weaving artisans passing away, and fewer Japanese wearing kimonos mean the slow loss of another of Japan's cultural icons.
I don't think kimono will ever go away per se, but the handmade, one-a-year, masterpieces have little future if there are no craftsmen to make them.
Not sure about Twitter.com but a few people I trust say it's cool. Anyone else reading my blog using Twitter? If so, please leave a comment with your twitter email.
Wild!
Koh has a set of photos from his test drive of the Eliica, an electric vehicle prototype built by Keio University.
0-60 in 4 seconds, 230 mph top speed. Engines inside the wheels, 8 of them. Pretty wild.
The official website is here and the development team has a blog (in Japanese.)
Sony Corporation president Chubachi says to the Japanese media:
"The company should have investigated the cause of the battery problem more quickly," Chubachi said in an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun daily published on Friday."The worries over the batteries spread as a result," he said.
If I was a stockholder, and unfortunately I am, I would want action not explanations.
This is definitely a "stating the obvious" type of post, but it is illustrative of the non-competitive market for advertising in Japan.
neomarxisme: All Behold the Monolithic Beauty of the Mobile Ad Monopoly
Decent op-ed by Bill Emmott in The Economist "The World in 2007" on the importance of more diplomacy between China and Japan.
Emmott calls for a free-trade agreement in Asia, which on the face of things seems very reasonable but in practice seems just about impossible.
I haven't logged into Warcraft in over a month. Haven't really been playing regularly since late summer. Don't really feel a need to. Haven't hit 60, and can't really see myself investing the time to hit 60 and now 70.
I'm going to think about it for a little more but I think I'm done.
