From Japan Media Review, http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/wiki/mobilemedia
Annenberg School of Journalism, University of Southern California

Mobile Media

The keitai (the commonly used Japanese term for mobile phone) is often more than a mere mobile phone; it can serve as an electronic wallet, a mobile gaming device, and a mobile television, among other things.

The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) recorded 88,536,000 keitai subscriptions in Japan in July 2005. The NTT DoCoMo Group led the market with 49,429,600 subscriptions, KDDI’s au mobile came in second with 20,122,700, third place Vodafone K.K. had 14,966,600, and Tu-Ka Group came in fourth at 3,556,700.

In a country where nearly 70 percent of the population is said to own at least one keitai, technological advances become critical not only in supplying user demand for enhanced content, but also in creating market demand for new hardware so as to maintain healthy keitai product cycles. The strategy appears to be successful: according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), Japanese mobile phone shipments in June 2005 were up 105.8 percent over June 2004, at 4,289,000 units. Of those June 2005 shipments, 3,003,000 keitai were 3G (third generation) units. By 2007, JEITA estimates that 77 percent of overall keitai subscriptions will be 3G units.

In its fourth year following their 3G CDMA phone launch in April 2002, wireless carrier KDDI acquired 18 million 3G keitai subscribers. Rival carrier NTT DoCoMo announced that the number of DoCoMo’s 3G keitai subscribers surpassed the 15 million mark on Aug. 5, four years after their October 2001 launch of W-CDMA phones. Their newest 3G platform, FOMA, enables a slew of new technologies and services including FeliCa, explained below.

Today’s keitai applications can be roughly divided into e-mail and voice communications, Web-browsing functionalities, downloadable content, news alerts and updates, advertising and promotions, GPS navigation and e-wallet functionalities.

News

NTT DoCoMo offers a news service called iChannel. For 157 yen per month, DoCoMo subscribers can receive news headlines that scroll across their keitai screen. News and horoscopes are supplied by the Yomiuri Shimbun, and weather is supplied by the Japan Weather Association, and updated every two hours. Extra fees are incurred if users choose to read more in-depth content.

Live updates of professional sports games can be accessed on the keitai. Au’s EZ-phone and Vodafone Live both offer free pro baseball news and live updates for approximately $3 (332 yen) a month. Rakuten is the first to launch live video broadcasts of pro baseball games to keitai. Viewers pay $2.70 (300 yen) a month, plus $0.27 to $0.63 (30 to 70 yen) per minute for video phone usage to view Rakuten Eagle games.

Navigation

KDDI and Keio University announced plans to jointly develop an electronic guidebook that incorporates valuable input from its most frequent users: college students. The guidebook will be designed to align with KDDI’s wireless carrier Au mobile’s existing EZ NaviWalk navigation system, and is scheduled to launch in 2006.

Traffic information access, available at access-tv.net for iMode and EZWeb phones provides traffic and weather reports for its users. Up to three times a day, for $2.66 (294 yen) a month, users who sign up for the Mail Alert Service receive keitai mail with information regarding the roads or train routes they frequent, along with weather reports for the next 24 hours.

In August 2005, Japanese domestic GPS navigation service NAVITIME went global with Global NAVITIME. Initial services have been made available in the United States, France, Germany and England, with more to follow. Global NAVITIME can be accessed via iAppli on iMode phones, and on the Web by Vodafone Live users. Each country features different information, though mainly making navigating from airport to hotel to local destination easier by way of navigation service. Monthly fees vary from $1.90 to $3.17 (210 to 350 yen).

Downloadable Content

Kemunavi is an online music magazine, one of several "free papers" or free publications circulating in Japan. It operates Kemunavi@Mr.CD, an iMode site featuring content from the magazine as well as sales of CDs and DVDs.

FOMA users can now download Adobe Reader for DoCoMo, enabling access to PDF files.

Cyberz Inc. operates social networking-type keitai Web sites Deai.com, an online dating service; Hit Chart.com, a music ranking and discussion site; and Nikki-k.jp, a blogging site that also allows bloggers to upload video blogs and podcast their entries.

Advertising and Promotion

iMode site Korean Television has exclusive broadcast rights to an Aug. 31, 2005 event featuring Korean actor Bae Yong Jun. Bae will be in Japan to promote the release of his new feature film, April Snow. Following the August event, movie trailers and downloadable content will be made available through the site in September to NTT DoCoMo, Au mobile and Vodafone Live subscribers.

In its attempts to be mom-and-pop-shop friendly, KDDI began testing a keitai e-flyer service in August 2005. This service enables non-computer-using businesses – namely small businesses – to send handwritten flyers via fax. DoCoMo, Au and Vodafone subscribers can download a special viewer to access these flyers.

Keitai users can also wave their phones over Denpa Posters (electronic wave posters), which are posters containing IC chips. The poster will send the keitai more information about the message on the poster. Meanwhile, NTT Data and TBS will be conducting a PR campaign for an animated feature film to be released in December 2005: with their camera phones, users need only to take a picture of the movie posters, and the phones will download further information on the film. This innovative service does not require any barcodes, as the program will be able to decipher the content through visual cues.

Software known as Townpocket allows retail outlets and customers to communicate information that would traditionally entail signing a guestbook or Web registration with the wave of a wand – or in this case, the keitai. Keitai users can keep information about a store they may wish to revisit in the future. They may also opt to supply e-mail or more personal information to receive e-coupons and enter raffles. In summer 2005, Urahara.org, a community site representing retailers in the Uraharajuku area of metropolitan Tokyo, and more than 150 of its participating retailers set up dedicated machines at their storefronts that enable FeliCa users to scan and "bookmark" the stores on their keitai.

Sony Communication Network (SCN)’s Internet ISP, So-Net, announced the September 2005 launch of a personal mobile portal, mychoi for iMode phones. In mychoi, users will be able to save sites and functions that they frequently use, and be exposed to an affiliate sales program developed with Linkshare Japan.

FeliCa

Currently, NTT DoCoMo offers FeliCa phones to its subscribers, while Au will be joining in September 2005. To make it easier for content providers, Au says its EZ FeliCa will operate similarly to its predecessor, ensuring plenty of content for EZ FeliCa users early in the service launch. EZ FeliCa users will have access to services like online Edy accounts, e-money, shopping, store membership and point cards.

What is Edy? Edy, which stands for Euro, Dollar, Yen, is a prepaid e-money service in which participating vendors can sell their services to Edy phone users. A service known as "Edy to Edy" enables money to change hands directly between two FeliCa phones in a real-time transaction. Currently, Edy phones can be used to buy items at convenience and grocery stores, vending machines, online shopping sites, as tickets to concert arenas and movie theaters, to open doors in lieu of keys, and to ride trains. Users may only charge up to $225 (approximately 25,000 yen) at a time, with the maximum account balance set at $452 (50,000 yen). Users can walk into convenience stores and add money to Edy with cash, or transfer money via credit cards through iMode and the Internet.

Satellite TV broadcaster WOWOW is offering keitai online shopping services jointly with Bandai Networks. Targeting young 20-something women, the online auction shopping site sells products mainly for that demographic. WOWOW says it hopes to expand to streaming video on keitai in the future.

Gatten-kun, by Nihon Comsys, is software that automatically sends photographs taken by DoCoMo camera phones to a server. With the task of creating a message and attaching a photo file to e-mail to the server obsolete, users will see that their photos are sent in five seconds.

Others

Google has developed a keitai search engine exclusively for the Japanese keitai market. The search engine incorporates keitai Web sites and keitai content, unlike its Web-based search, making it easier for keitai users to find relevant content.

Software and Services for Content Providers

For a set-up fee of approximately $1,000 (110,533 yen), Internet ISP Livedoor has made it easy for users to establish keitai Web sites. Without having any technical coding knowledge, these users can build pages that incorporate text, archives, surveys, databases, search functions and images using Livedoor Mobiley

Keitai @, by Marubeni Telecom enables the launch and content management of a keitai site through a computer. The service, available for DoCoMo, Vodafone and Au/Tu-Ka carriers, is offered through corporate Web site service company Business Plala. Along with membership databases, Web designers can easily incorporate e-commerce and e-coupons through the platform.