Mobile Commerce Is Japan's E-Commerce - The Associated Press

[Scavenger]

http://mobility.mobi/
The Associated Press (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/8i-0&fd=R&url=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ix9YXEYFpTRwJUfbHc0-WFi2Cc-AD8VPGBMO0&cid=1147855668&ei=mhDzR7CTGJiAzgTW1NjSBA&usg=AFrqEzcV7njRoG9Oa5fyCQELOuqLIeQTaQ)
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Mobile Commerce Is Japan&#39;s E-Commerce (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/8-0&fd=R&url=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ix9YXEYFpTRwJUfbHc0-WFi2Cc-AD8VPGBMO0&cid=1147855668&ei=mhDzR7CTGJiAzgTW1NjSBA&usg=AFrqEzfjJBCZLK_xkoaraNQQ18VqL698zg)
The Associated Press - 39 minutes ago
Enough new mobile phones were sold in Japan last year — a total of 52.3 million — for nearly half the population. The biannual Tokyo Girls Collection show, ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/8-0&fd=R&url=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ix9YXEYFpTRwJUfbHc0-WFi2Cc-AD8VPGBMO0&cid=1147855668&ei=mhDzR7CTGJiAzgTW1NjSBA&usg=AFrqEzfjJBCZLK_xkoaraNQQ18VqL698zg)

[Javier Marti]

Notice:

"Women are behind the popularity of text-messaging, novels read on cell phones and "purikura," which are booths for taking snapshots and adding decorative computer graphics, said Ito, professor at Keio University in Tokyo." Together with tweens, that should be the main target market for mobile advertisers, and mobi content providers

retail business models that combine effectively the physical experience with e-commerce are the winners in the future. How people access this info (domains, codes, textlinks...) is something to carefully watch
expect this model to expand to most other products as well. A few years ago some people were saying that due to e-commerce, retail would die. This is not so. Retail won't die this time either, but get a good boost from these technologies, as this example in the article shows.
If you are a merchandinse provider, concentrate on offering an exclusive product. If you bet on price, you'll be out of business pretty soon. Even China is losing its export advantage and manufacturing migrating to India/Vietnam. (to go somewhere else later)
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr08/china4-08.html
This seems obvious but too many are still not "getting it" and going bust. The future belongs to brands that can sell an image associated to their product rather than making a good offering based on quality/price, as the iPhone demonstrates to a point. (however, watch for the new massive and growing submarkets within the market, at the bottom of the pyramid. Being short on cash will lose the stigma soon, so brands that can sell themselves as "best of the cheapest" will be in a good position too)