Monday, March 12, 2007

Web 2.0 Japan

There's a growing interest in Japan from a number of quarters. Companies are wondering whether the growth of web in business there may offer opportunities to break into a market which remains tough in traditional business media.

I was interested then, to see the Web 2.0 Asia blogger reporting on a trip to Japan and an interview with Masashi Kobayashi, a web entrepreneur and blogger. Do read the whole post, but the highlights were:

1. The main focus of the Japanse web service has been shifted to mobile.
2. New profit models are popping up.
3. Blogs are being tied up with vertical industries to create new values and profit models.
4. UGC (User-generated Content) is booming, but Japanese Media industry is extremely slow to the change.

I posted back in January on what I then thought was Edelman's slightly odd piece on web usage in business in Japan. It is clearly going to have to come more sharply into focus for me. I think this could be important for many business media companies.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul, thanks for visiting my blog. Didn't know you were in Korea. How did you find the country? :)

Paul Woodward said...

I always enjoy my trips to Korea. Your country has a strong and distinct culture all of its own despite being squeezed between the 'giants' Japan and Korea.

Business is tough but, once something is agreed, it happens. This isn't always true in the rest of Asia. And, of course, the sophisticated web/mobile culture in a country with a unique language and alphabet is fascinating for anybody interesting in the information industry.

Enjoy Japan!