Life is Beautiful

SNS and internationalization

Serkan Toto wrote a very good article about SNS and Japanese market (Taking social network abroad - Why MySpace and Facebook are failing in Japan).

This is very relevant to me because my company has just launched a brand-new social networking application for iPhone users (Big Canvas PhotoShare, available at Tunes App Store).

In a nut shell, Big Canvas PhotoShare is a photo version of Twitter, strictly targeting iPhone users who essentially carry "always-connected camera".

We strongly believe that Apple's iPhone is the first generation of devices that enable true "always-connected" lifestyle.

It is so obviously to me that the "visual communication" will be the next wave of communication after voice and text (phone calls and SMS), and we have designed PhotoShare from scratch to optimize it for those people who would really enjoy always-connected lifestyle enabled by iPhone.

Thanks to Apple's App Store (which allows us to release our applications without having any negotiation with wireless operators), we have released PhotoShare to 30 countries at the day one Apple opened the App Store.

Within a few weeks, we've got thousands of very active users from all over the world (US, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Holland, Greek, ...) posting their photos daily and communicating over those photos. As far as I remember, I saw titles and comments in English, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Chinese, French and Spanish.

As I have expected, Asian users, especially Japanese users (who are much more familiar with this "always-connected" lifestyle because of DoCoMo's i-mode) are using PhotoShare much more actively and effectively, posting their daily activities, including lunches they had, restaurants they went, fireworks they say, and parties they went, while many American users are still using it as if this is a iPhone version of Flickr or MySpace.

As the result, I see a lot of photos posted by Japanese users than American users (despite the larger number of American users). It concerned me a little bit at the beginning, but my concern is a lot less because many American users started realizing the fact that PhotoShare is very different from Flickr, and it is a tool to share their daily experience with others (either privately or publicly).

As Serkan has pointed out in his article, building a true world-wide social networking service is not easy because of the language barrier and the cultural barrier. Luckily, photo-based communication reduced the language barrier significantly, and I see some evidence. The difference in culture is much more challenging, but I am hoping that it would be relatively easy for text-message generation of Americans users to adapt Japanese-style "always-connected" lifestyle.

There are still a lot of things we need to do to make PhotoShare a true world-wide social network service, but It would be really great if we are able to bridge the gaps among multiple languages and cultures, which even MySpace and Facebook are having a hard time to deal with.   

Keitai Culture 2007

It is well-known in the wireless industry that Japan and Korea are 18 to 24 months ahead of the US market, therefore, it is very important to watch these markets - especially consumer behaviors.

I found a very good article in CNet Japan by Yuichiro Murakami, Chief Creative Officer of "Docomo Dot Com". The full article is available at http://japan.cnet.com/column/pers/story/0,2000055923,20347777,00.htm (but it's all written in Japanese).

Here is a quick summary for those who can't read Japanese.

Point 1. More Keitai than PC
Young people in Japan are much more familiar with Keitai (=wireless phone) than PC. There are more keitai-only internet users than PC-only internet user. They are much more familiar with keitai keyboard than PC keyboard, and no problem typing very rapidly. One young author has just published a 340-page book all written with Keitai.

Point 2. Less voice calls
From their point of view, voice calls are expensive and inconvenient, while wireless messaging (SMS and e-mail) are much more reasonable and convenient. The definition of "long call" used to be one or two hours, but a five minute call is now considered "long". 

Point 3. No longer specify the exact location
When they meet with other people, they simply pick an area to meet, without specifying the exact location. Once they get to the area, they wirelessly communicate to meet each other.

Point 4. Using Keitai in the bath tab is getting popular
Because Keitai became the integral part of their life, they bring it to the bed and bath. Many Japanese enjoy soaking bath while wirelessly communicating with friends.

Point 5. Less messaging, more SNS
The number of wireless messages has started declining at the end of 2005, as the result of shift from one-to-one communication to one-to-many communication with SNS and blogs.

Point 6. Women in 20s are the key for the success of SNS business
Japanese women in 20s are willing to spend money to make them look better, and promote themselves. In some SNS services, the majority of revenue is coming from the sales of premium templates, background music and avatars to their home page. In addition, this segment of users have a lot of followers, young girls who want to be like them, older women who want to learn from younger generation, and of course, all the men.

Point 7. Byte-size contents
In the content side, there is a huge shift from full-length music to 15-second music clip, from RPG games to simple puzzles, and from always-connected to lightly-connected. They prefer a few minutes of micro entertainment here and there.

Bandai phone - an alternative to MVNO

Bandai came up with a Bandai phone, which looks very much like MVNO, but actually not. This is the result of a very innovative wireless operator in Japan, Willcom (owned by Carlyle group, a Seattle-based investment group, focusing on wireless segment). I think it wortsh pay attention to.

Wilcom is, I think, the first wireless operator that are intentionally "dumb pipe" - completely opening up it's network to anybody to create devices and/or value-added services. Wilcom has significantly simplified the process for third party to create wireless phone or wireless data devices for their service by combining SIM card and RF module into a single module called WSIM (manufactured by Net-Index, owned by Index).

This very unique approach allows companies like Bandai to create and sell their own branded phones without going through a painful certification process by FCC or Wilcom. The only thing they need to do is to create a device has a slot to insert a WSIM card - just like creating a PC with PCMCIA slot.

Most interestingly, this model allows companies like Bandai to offer an MVNO-like experience to their fans, without taking the risk of becoming a "vertual" network operator. It allows them a great flexitiblity in business model, ranging from one-time purchase (Bandai makes money by simply selling unique phones), to pre-paid contents (Bandai allows users to buy contents using pre-paid money).

 

Cisco buys Scientific Atlanta

http://biz.yahoo.com/ft/051118/fto111820051827047654.html?.v=1

This is yet another proof that video will be eventually broadcasted over IP network, just like voice. It totally make sense for Cisco to try to become the key player in IP-settop box, which will become the "media hub" for home. It means Cisco will eventually fight with Microsoft (XBox360 + Media Center PC), Apple (Mac Mini) and Sony (PS3) as well as traditional set-top manufacture, Motorola.

Ozzie memo: Internet services disruption

I have just read the memo written by Micrsoft CTO, Ray Ozzie, which is much more valuable than more-widely distributed Bill's memo. It is certainly a very tough job for him to move such a big company, and this is certainly a good memo to kick start this effort.

Even though he does not clearly say it, it is very clear that Ray understands that Operating System itself does not matter any more, and Office has completely lost the format battle against HTML and PDF. It is easy to criticize him that there is nothing new, but this is still a very good memo considering it was written by an executive in Microsoft.

It became very clear to me that Bill and Steve finally found their successor. Yes, I am serious. Ray will become the next CEO of Microsoft when Bill and Steve retires. I have a very strong feeling that it will happen within two to three years.