Mobile Cultures

Traveling in Japan one gets an immediate impression of the impact that mobile devices is having here. One would be hard pushed on a train to not see someone doing something online. In addition, a number of developments (initially centered on continuing automation of ticketing on the rail networks) have led to deeper integration of pay-by-cell phone mechanisms.

It is tempting to look at Japan (and Tokyo in particular) as a vision of the future for other countries or cities. For example, cell phones in Japan are getting larger (while the rest of the world is still in, or recovering from a smaller is better approach) - this is a trend we can expect to see in the US soon (thanks in part to the iPhone). However, there are more fundamental aspects of a society that cannot be disentangled from their attitudes and integration of technology. Two come to mind in the context of mobile devices in Tokyo.

Firstly, Tokyo is all about public transport. Trains run at minute intervals and are packed. Public transport is prime info-snacking space.

Secondly, population density in Tokyo results, obviously, in small accommodations. One consequence of this is that people, and young people in particular, spend a lot of time outside their place of residence, thus providing many user needs for mobile devices and information services.

The point I want to make is that these two factors, I believe, lead to increased use of mobile devices and, importantly, they won't be replicated in most US cities.

Comments

[Dmitriy]

The US is actually really bad in terms of cell phone feature availability. iPhone is helping change this, but the contrast is really stark. I've been to Russia a couple of years ago and even there cell phones are cheap, ubiquitous, and, compared to what we see in the US, very advanced. I think we'd see a lot of innovation in this space if wireless phone companies did not like locking in people into contracts (by subsidizing the heck out of el cheapo phones available on the US market) so much. Another thing is affordability. For some reason, US wireless providers love to nickel and dime their customers to death, and then some.

[Prolific Programmer]

While what you say is (entirely) true, I further think that there is a factor of the incumbent landline telco not being responsible for mobile deployment. In the US, AT&T and Verizon are the largest mobile providers, and simultaneously the largest fixed-line operators.

[Andrew]

Innovation is driven by competition. In the US, the ogilopoly of wireless carriers keeps prices high and service poor. Japan has a very competitive carrier market. This is a huge factor, bigger than the ones that you state.

The telecom market, both wired and wireless, is keeping America in the second world of internet access.