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Alchemista - Katz Ueno

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Softbank did it again - Free Ustream Studio, and Free WiFi spots

One of the Japanese cell-phone cariors, Softbank is known for foreigner-friendly carrior.

With its innovative mind set is somewhat similar to that of Apple.

Today, they did it again.


Softbank gained the Japan's most friendly cell phone company in Japan among Twitter users.

From one tweet from Japanese Twitter user to Softbank CEO, Masatoshi Son, Softbank decided to open its company building and invited 2,000 guests to show around the company building.


And, one Japanese twitter suggested him to set-up a Ustream studio because Softbank announced to acquire a portion of Ustream share. Son replied immediately that he would do it.

1.5 months later, Softbank built a Ustream studio, and Son said he would open the Ustream Studio to anybody for FREE (although you need to apply for the time, of course.)

And without a doubt, today's event was broadcasted via Ustream, and more than 10,000 viewers witnessed this innovative communication of Softbank.



At the keynote speech, Son admit that Softbank cell network connectivity is a bit worse than other carriors. Whereas other carriors has 99% of connectivity, Softbank ONLY has 98%.

So he came up with three plans today.


Softbank's Connectivity Improvement Plans


1. Double the number cell-towers within a year

Son announced that they will double the cell towers so that indoor or underground would have better connectivity.

Softbank will create a Twitter account where users can report the connection problem.



2. Provide micro cell-tower to all household for FREE of charge

If you live in a remote area, and don't get the reception at home. Softbank announced to provide DSL-based cell tower to ALL household for free of charge (unless you need to dig a hole.) And if you do not have ADSL internet, Softbank will also provide ADSL like for FREE!

They will start accepting application on May 10. Since you are setting up a cell-tower, the paperwork would take more than 1 month to process.

Man... I've never heard of American cell phone carriors offer that... I didn't get a good AT&T reception in my West LA apartment.



3. Provide micro cell-tower & WiFi to all businesses (cafe, salon, restaurant) for FREE of charge.

The above service also applied to all small businesses (cafe, salon, restaurant etc). Softbank will provide FREE micro-cell tower as well as FREE WiFi spot for iPhone users (I think they will limit the free use of WiFi only to iPhone or smart phone users).





2. Three Ustrem Studios Open to All Users For FREE

Another announcement is three Ustream Studios.

Softbank just launched the Ustream studio in the company's cafeteria of their headquater building in Shiodome, Tokyo.

And they will install a Ustream studio at Softbank store in Shibuya, and some Karaoke store in Shibuya.

The people would need to make an appointment (I bet this will be hard to make). But they will be able to use Softbank's equipment to broadcast their own program for free.

At their Softbank's headquater Ustream Studio, they will have a talk-program style studio, and DJ booth studio.... It looked like they also have Rolland's video switcher and it would be a multi-camera studios.

Oh man.... Softbank is letting people use such a facility for free?

Man....


As a exclusive iPhone carrior, the keynote of Son suggested the Apple style without a doubt.

It was very exiciting and history moment among communication industry.






Japanese News Resource:

ソフトバンク,2010年度内に基地局倍増など携帯の電波改善策を宣言
http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20100328/346316/

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Monday, March 15, 2010

The rise of "Media 2.5"

As a journalist and editor of a several publications, I can no longer ignore the trend of this social media movement.

Previously, we had a clear distinction between mass media and personal blog media.

However, Twitter, Ustream and YouTube shortened the gap between "mass" and "personal".

This is not the viral marketing.

Viral marketing is initialted by individuals.

When you pay attention to Twitter's timeline, I could say that 1/3 to 1/5 of Twitter's discussion is based on what mass media talks about.

So if all of mass media disappeared from this world, Twitter would become 1/3 to 1/5 less interesting.

I think it's time to restructure the style of media..

And I shall call this "Media 2.5"



The rise of "Media (2.5)"

Traditionally, we only had mass media. Newspaper, Radio, and TV.

Even before the Internet, people start doing independent press, and create a small scale distribution. But especially since the Internet era, personal publishing became more accessible.

But mass media and personal media still had a clear distinction between.

People go to newspaper's web site, and they just write about it on their web site.

Blog was still blog. You only talk about your personal opinion.

However, "API" (such as Facebook Connect, or Open ID) changed everything.

You can now log-in to any service using Facebook ID or Twitter account. (You can log-in to The Huffinton Post web site using Facebook).

Why is this the innovation?

Because this OpenID system is removing the boundry between mass media and personal media.

You can upload a video onto YouTube. But U2 is also using YouTube to showcase their live concert under the same umbrella. And users can now share the information via Twitter.

Traditionally, both news site and personal blog took long time to write an article. So it was not quick enough.

However, Twitter enable you to report something really quick. Yet, 140-word is not the long enough.

Therefore, the combination of Twitter, blog, and mass media would be the key players of next media.


The characterstics of new trends would be

  • Combination of Timely, Personal and In-depth
    • Timely = Twitter
    • Personal = Blog
    • In-depth = Mass media
  • Each of media will associate each other

So

  • Mass media (1) +
  • personal involvement (1) +
  • association (0.5)
    • = Mext Media (2.5)
I believe that we live in an excitement moment.


Well... we'll see

Saturday, March 6, 2010

The World Best Travel YouTube Video about Japan

I just discovered these video series done by egauemon-san on YouTube.

I personally think this is ABSOLUTELY the BEST travel video IN THE WORLD!!!!.

Why? You just have to watch these in FULLSCREEEN.

KYOTO - CRUISE 2009


ISE JINGU / JAPAN 2010



No annoying host
No talking

It's like you are there.

Next step, find out wrere, buy an air plane ticket, and be there.


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Tokyo Sky Drive -Night ver.- 01

Just watch and relax


Tokyo Sky Drive -Night ver.- 01



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Web developers' memo

Leaving some memo for my new project.


Let's refresh my mind again
Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html



Javascript Tips

jQuery LazyLoad
http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/lazyload
This is the jQuery plug in to post load the images that are only visible (or delay loading image)

Preload Images Sequentially With jQuery
http://www.appelsiini.net/2007/6/sequentially-preloading-images

YUI2: ImageLoader
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/imageloader/


Social Network Widgets

ShareThis
http://sharethis.com/

AddToAny
http://www.addtoany.com/

DISQUS
http://disqus.com/

IntenseDebate
http://intensedebate.com/

Social Marketing

Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/



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