Motoko’s weblog

Baidu Japan started its mobile search service. In addition to mobile sites, it searches web, images/photos and videos. The unique service of this new search engine is that it lets you search with “Emoji” (emoticon) , too! Some of you may remember that iPhone struggled to gain the market share in Japan when it was introduced to the market. One of the biggest reasons why people didn’t want to use iPhone was that you couldn’t use “Emoji” with iPhone. Since then, Softbank added this Emoji function to iPhone, and now it’s the most popular mobile phones in Japan. In fact, Emoji is a big part of communication method for Japanese people not only with instant messaging, but with blogs, SMSs, etc. One of the first functions added to mixi (Japan’s popular SNS site) was a list of emoticons, too.

However, enabling Emoji search on mobile is much more than a “fun” factor, it helps search experiences. For example, Continue Reading »

Japan’s leading product review and pricing site, Kakaku.com, announced the results of their Smartphone survey done in Japan. (6,149 samples, Male:88.4% / Female:11.6%)

The report shows that more than 20% have Smartphone, and more than 25% of people under 39 have Smartphone. I was surprised to see that more than 28% of teens responded that they had Smartphone. Note that 14.5% of teens said that they didn’t have any cell phones.

Smartphone users in Japan

Continue Reading »

I’m doing “Mobile Search” and “Keyword & Content” sessions at SES London next week in Islington, UK.

While “Mobile Search” hasn’t happened in US, UK and in Europe, it has been happening… in fact it’s huge in Asia especially in Japan. I hope to introduce some ideas of how to integrate mobile into the marketing mix.

The session is moderated by David Radicke of  Radicke eCommerce and presented by Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile, Michael Boland of The Kelsey Group and me. Continue Reading »

One of the latest news items in Japan’s mobile market is that the iPhone will be available through Softbank in July, which means that Yahoo is set as the official search engine for iPhone in Japan. Yahoo’s search team has developed iPhone/iPod Touch search services, which has functions to switch between iPhone/iPod Touch screen and PC screen. The functions on iPhone/iPod Touch screen have been adjusted to provide better usability and the search experiences. It also has image search function.

The mobile Internet and mobile search started back in the ’90s in Japan when Japan’s NTT DoCoMo created “i-Mode” service, which was to provide a mobile Internet browser and the connection to view mobile websites from DoCoMo’s cell phone. The mobile Internet market has grown rapidly in Japan since then, and now the stats show that there are more access to Internet from mobile than from PC in Japan. Many Japanese conduct all of their Internet activities from mobile! Continue Reading »