Japanese broadcasters, newspapers, magazines and other publishers have already launched a wide range of Java-based information services offering daily or hourly updates on news, sports, TV program listings and more. Reuters' office in Japan is now creating a Java-based news delivery system for Japan that will feed content -- including breaking news, picture alerts and headlines linked to mini-stories -- to both wireless carriers and traditional media organizations such as newspapers and magazines. Reuters already provides traditional Web-based wireless content in Japan and other markets, including Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and Taiwan. "Java will allow us to deliver less content that is more relevant," says Robin Birtle, head of wireless strategy at Reuters' Tokyo office. "Financial news via Reuters terminals provides our core revenues," he says, "but clients also want mobile access." The urge to distribute news via mobile devices in Japan is easy to understand, given the size of the audience: There are about 74 million cell phones in use in Japan today. An estimated 60 million wireless Web users now regularly cruise more than 60,000 wireless Web pages. Just 6 million people in Japan access the Internet via DSL. At the end of 2002, NTT DoCoMo, Japan's leading wireless carrier, had 15 million Java users, many of whom used the new desktop appli handsets, while competitor carriers J-Phone and KDDI had more than 5 million subscribers. Tokyo startup Nooper.com is one of the first to market with a real-time content distribution desktop appli; it's trying to sell the program to retailers, financial institutions and content providers -- though so far with little success. Nooper's software would allow content owners, such as Yahoo or MSN, to push information such as weather reports, Web site updates, sports results, or stock quotes to cell phones. If you program Nooper to fetch the Web-posted headlines from a major newspaper based on keywords like "Yomiuri Giants" or "baseball," the Nooper server checks the source at regular intervals, repackages the information, then stores it in a delivery queue ready to be downloaded. While the Nooper software has yet to be deployed by a news organization, the company's chief technical officer, Juergen Specht, is enthusiastic about the promise. "The Java appli makes for a richer user experience," he says. Nooper has many competitors in the desktop appli niche. One highly popular desktop appli service provider is NetVillage, whose "Remote Mail" desktop appli provides real-time mobile access to any existing mail account. Some 340,000 subscribers pay about $1.50 per month, plus data traffic fees, for the service. Java could eventually deliver TV news clips, and many developers are testing applications. Traditional broadcast outlets are lining up to produce content for Japan's tens of millions of mobile Internet users. For example, Nippon TV, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Fuji TV, TV Asahi, Jiji Press, ESPN, and TV Tokyo are among the 23 news, weather, and sports channels available on NTT DoCoMo's "M-stage visual" mobile service, which provides 90-second video clips from some 80 channels. Subscribers download clips or watch them via streaming delivery for $1.50 to $2.50 per clip, plus airtime fees and $1.50 per month to NTT DoCoMo. NTT DoCoMo keeps the airtime and download profits, and shares the content income with the content providers. The content doesn't have to be sophisticated to be profitable. During last summer's World Cup soccer championship held in Japan and Korea, state-owned broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) created several popular real-time mobile information services, including the popular "Uniform Number" service -- a free appli that lets users access vital statistics and personal information on Japanese national team players by entering a player's jersey number into their cell phones. "There's a huge amount of information on the Net. If we can unleash this information to 70 million mobile subscribers, it will have a big impact," says Godo Irukayama, manager in NTT DoCoMo's Mobile Multimedia Terminal Development Department. "It's good for TV companies to provide their programming via mobile," says Fumihisa Yamaguchi, a senior manager at NTT DoCoMo working to develop multimedia content. He says subscribers will pay, but adds that "the market has to expand." Daniel Scuka is host of streaming content site Wireless Watch Japan and a freelance writer and researcher based in Tokyo.
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