The myth of Japan and mobile useage

February 6th, 2009

Lars Ishii-Cosh a good friend of mine who runs Wireless Watch Japan amongst other things, makes in my view some very interesting observations about mobile useage in that country.

And in so doing explodes some myths in the process.

The urban legend that Japanese users adopted web via mobile because of low PC penetration has been clearly de-bunked by the ITU. As we have stated many times in the past, fixed-line connections per capita in Japan was on par with most other G7 countries in 1999 at the launch of i-mode [Source].

Research in Japan has shown that mobile usage of voice, mail and web – across all demographics – hardly varies between urban and rural locations, so the mass transit train excuse explanation is also not based in fact.

And the boys sum up

Our final parting thought for now is a mantra we’ve been chanting for years: The success of mobile in Japan is not because of a unique user culture, it’s the unique business model. As for whether it’s really ‘too unique’ to be copied – clearly in many ways it already has been the blueprint and will no doubt continue to pioneer innovation – the bigger question is which parts travel, what needs tweaking and how long that takes. Imagine the difference in EU or US markets with 90% penetration of 3G, the majority of subscribers on reasonable flat-rate data plans and a fair shake for the players who bring digital content to market. Is that really such a unique concept or is the current Japan model just slightly ahead of it’s time?

My own view is that one of the reasons why people, or companies fail to grasp new learning is that they like to say “well that’s Japan, so it can’t work here,” and that is to do with mindset, a straight line mindset, that creates a form of myopia. It seems that companies struggle to understand the finer points of sharing and transactional economies in a networked society.

Therefore we need to De-school ourselves in industrial straight line thinking (hierarchical, distribution control, siloed, linear process), and Re-school ourselves in a new form of economic and communication literacy. Because, straight line thinking is designing for success, in a system that cannot deliver optimum performance.

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