PostUp Acquires Echofon, Leading Twitter App on iPhone, iPad and Firefox | Business Wire

PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PostUp, Inc., today announced its acquisition of Echofon, the suite of Twitter applications developed by naanstudio, and previously known as “TwitterFon” and “TwitterFox.” Widely regarded for its ease of use and simple, elegant design, Echofon is currently used by more than 3 million people internationally, across multiple platforms. Additionally, Echofon was one of the first Twitter applications to introduce User Streams, a new Streaming API that gives Twitter desktop applications real-time capabilities and streams. GigaOm included Echofon in its top five Twitter applications for iPad, citing its Echofon Pro synchronization capabilities for the iPad, iPhone and desktop. It also has an Echofon for Facebook app available for the iPhone.

via www.businesswire.com

Echofon founder Kazuho Okui, his partner Naoki Hiroshima and Biz Dev Chika Watanabe are all my friends at JTPA (Japanese Technology Professional Organization). Kazuho started it as his hobby 3 years ago.

They didn't start it as a "start-up", but was rather as their "favorite passtime", and was caught by surprise when people started using their app with no marketing effort.

But I think the secret of their success is that they started early, both in Twitter and iPhone, before anyone else. They surely have good grasp of what's going on in Web world, and they share the LOVE to the mobile gear with many Japanese people.

Congrats to Echofon folks!!

Michi

Japan's "digital dividend" spectrum will be harmonized with global standard

700MHzと900MHz周波数、世界標準に合わせることになりそう - Tech Mom from Silicon Valley

So-called "digital dividend", or the spectrum previously occupied by analog TV and gets vacated due to transition to digital broadcast, is valuable spectrum for mobile carriers in any country. In Japan, that is in 700MHz, essentially the same as in the U.S., but before the government was thinking of paring it with 900MHz, ignoring the world standard.

It was because the vacated 700MHz spectrum is not enough to go around among current carriers, and the nearby 700MHz owners are on "broadcasters" side usage, who has a big lobbying power.

I was among the industry people who strongly opposed to that idea. My team suggested to move those neighbors and get enough 700MHz, by paying the cost for moving. After some battle, on 11/19, in the commission in the Japanese regulatory body, all 5 carriers unanimously voted for the new "harmonizing" plan, so there will be 700MHz pairs and 900MHz pairs.

Japan's "Galapagos" phenomenon - segregation from the rest of the world - is seen as problematic, but I am glad that at least in one aspect was saved in the Japanese Galapagos mobile industry.

The news was out last week but I just noticed it today and blogged about it, then it got retweeted so much. I realized that many people in the industry agreed with my idea, and I am glad that Japanese authority did something to change the previous course.

Michi

Softbank is limiting all iPhone uplink speed up to 64k in Tokyo?

ソフトバンクが都心全域で上り帯域を64kbpsに制限中? : 管理人@Yoski

According to a Japanese blogger, Japanese iPhone carrier Softbank seems to be limiting the iPhone uplink at 64kbps for all users in Tokyo metro center.

Softbank's wireless bandwidth shortage has been a huge problem for Japanese iPhone users, just as AT&T in the U.S.

In the meantime, their competitors DoCoMo and KDDI are coming up with new Android line ups for the holiday season. It is time finally in Japan that Android will quickly catch up to iPhone's early lead, I guess.

Michi

Rise of the Info-Terrorism: Japan-China boat collision video leaked

via www.examiner.com

Let's just put my political opinion about the "Senkaku boat collision" incident aside.  (Read what exactly happened in the link above.) I am just stunned by the actual power of "info terrorism" in this era of YouTube and Twitter, and still wondering implication of it in the format of democracy as a whole.

If it were Before YouTube era, pre-2005, the pundit would never had a chance to leak the video. Now, with just a stroke of a keyboard and a mouse, the video is EVERYWHERE, so QUICKLY, thanks to Twitter. Although it was taken down from YouTube by the uploader, the videos are copied and are uploaded and downloaded everywhere.  Someone even burned it ont several hundred DVD and left them at a crowded train station.

And the reaction of the people in Japan, both on the net and from the traditional media, is so strong. Most of the opinions I hear supports Japanese coast guard, praise the leaker, and trashes Democrat Party cabinet's handling of the whole incidet and their decision not to disclose the video to the public. Some rightly points out that the leak happened without democratic procedure and the weakness of Japanese government's information security management.

Of course, that is what they wanted to do - it is a case of info-terrorism.

And I have to admit that I am a bit amused by the reaction of the traditional media. They pick up these YouTube videos and broadcast the footage over and over again, without permission or payment - ehh, what about the copyrights?? ehh, isn't YouTube your archenemy?

What should I take this incident in the whole scheme of things of democracy? People should have the right information to make right decisions, and it used to be the role of professionally trained media to inform people. Now, we can get information from many other sources, and what is the ethical boundary of the "rights to know"?

But at the same time, I appreciate the "freedom" that Japanese people enjoy due to its non-oppressive government and its sophisticated info-tech infrastructure.  The same thing can be said about "Wikileaks".

I have a very mixed feeling about this whole thing.

Michi

Youth exodus from automobile - not only in Japan, but in the U.S., too!?

via business.nikkeibp.co.jp

I have just written an article about "Smartphone-ization of cars" in Nikkei Business Online in Japanese. Essentially, it talks about Ford's "MyFordTouch" strategy, to position itself as relevant to youth culture, who shifted from automobile-centric to mobie/net-centric lifestyle. In it, I just praised Ford's sincere effort, but I implied a sarcasm to Japanese automakers, who complain that recent Japanese youth are not interested in cars, and say that it is the sign of the young people becoming "too tame."  Sounds like they put blame on their (potential) customers, rather than trying to change themselves.

Well, after I wrote this, I received a lot of interesting comments from readers, and one of them showed me another interesting statistics from AdAge. It says that U.S. youth have exactly the same tendency to the Japanese youth.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=144155

It supports what I said in the article. I am also a bit relieved to imagine that my son, who is fast approaching to the driving age, may not hurry to drive a car!

Michi

"How to recommend Twitter to" joke

Here is my recent favorite joke going around on Japanese Twittersphere.

How to recommend twitter:

to British "gentlemen would do Twitter"

to German "the rule says you are supposed do it"

to Italian "beautiful girls are doing it"

to American "you will be a hero if you do it"

to French "don't do Twitter"

to Japanese "everybody is doing it"

LOL!!

BTW, with Kanji (Chinese characters), we can compress all above contents into 140 characters.  Power of kanji charcters!

Michi

Tesla moved into former NUMMI plant yesterday

Just got an e-mail newsletter from Tesla that they opened the door of the new factory in Fremont, CA, the former GM-Toyota JV NUMMI plant on Wednesday (10/27).  I am REALLY excited to hear this!

I have never had a chance to visit NUMMI, and I am ALL THE MORE interested in visiting there someday.  I spent a month in Honda Accord assembly line in Sayama as a new employee training almost 3-decades ago, but never have seen the electric vehicle factory.

Can someone give me the writing assignment or something, so I have an excuse to go there!!??

Michi

Huawei Technologies of China’s Bold Push Into U.S. - NYTimes.com

via www.nytimes.com

Just read NYT article about Huawei, which was linked from WierelessWire News in Japan.

I have been WELL aware of Huawei's push into the U.S. market, through their huge presence in trade shows and Silicon Valley events for the past year or so. It is another "deja vu" from 90's when Korean vendors tried to enter into the U.S. infrastructure market.

I was at a start-up carrier at that time and LG was making really aggressive offer with a very generous vendor financing. So I am suspecting that Huawei is making a similar offer, basically to "lend money", to get a symbolic first major contract in the U.S.

Korea is basically an U.S. ally and is not considered any political threat to the U.S., and still, LG could not make much inroads into the U.S. telecom infra market back in the 90's, despite their big effort.

I wonder if Chinese, who holds a very different view of the world from the U.S. people, could break through this barrier, after 15 years since Koreans' failure.  Of course, the time is different.  15 years ago, there were more vendor choices for carriers, including North-American native such as Lucent and Nortel, but they are gone.  The only other choices are European vendors, such as Ericsson, NokiaSiemens and Alcatel-Lucent, who picked up the remains of the NA vendors.

Looking at it from Sprint's point of view, I can understand that they are THAT desperate right now, needing financing for the next generation investment. But again, "deja vu" feeling comes up for me. When they selected WiMax for their 2.6GHz spectrum holdings, I suspect it was not exactly a technical merit decision, but guess there was some monetary distortion going on with the vendors. I mean, they are private company and it is OK to make decisions based on "various considerations", but "distorted" decision could cause a "distorted" result - that is the risk they are running.

At least back in the 90's, I was surprised at the level of "political/national security" influence into the telecom infra world in the U.S., and I really wonder if it was so much changed since then. If so, Sprint may go into another chaos. Hmmm....

Michi

Saw "TSN", was quoted on "WSJ"

via blogs.wsj.com

I went to see the new movie "The Social Network", the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, this morning. I went to Century Cinema 16 in Mountain View with a friend for 11am show. When I got there, the place was nearly empty. A few nice old ladies were in front of us to buy tickets, and they didn't even know what Facebook was. The theater was less than half-full, mostly with the same age group people as these ladies.

Then, when we came out, the theater lobby was BUZZING with full-house people, many sitting around on the floor eating their late lunch. I thought, "OMG, good thing we came early. Friday afternoon is a busy time!"

Then, the more surprise came when I got out of the building - a HUGE line, going all around the building, and much more were just arriving on the phalanx of black buses.  It reminded me of the early Spongebob episode, in which zillions of anchovies on the tour bus stormed into Krusty Krub and horrified Mr. Krub muttered "anchovies..."

They turned out to be Facebook employees. I asked one of them and confirmed, because they all had employee badges, but the badge did not clearly said the company name. My friend, an "industry insider", also told me that Google people were supposed to come, from the nearby Googleplex.

So I took a photo of the line with my Android phone and quickly uploaded to Twitter. Then when my lunch was over, I noticed that another friend, a WSJ reporter, asked me if they could use the photo for the article, and confirmed a few points. I said, sure, go ahead. A few more minutes later, it was already up on WSJ site. Wow, that was quick!!

As for the movie itself, I liked it a lot. I already read the original novel "Accidental Billionaire" and knew the story. The film basically follows the story, with a few original additions, like the opening and the ending, which I LIKED A LOT. Characters, lines and behaviors are very well written, constructed and acted. I think the main actor Jesse Eisenberg did a great job in acting this "nerdy jerk", maintaining the viewers' sympathy till the end. And the contrasts - East vs. West, geek vs. suits, traditional ethics vs. entrepreneurs' justice, which were also vividly depicted in the original novel, were visually stunning in the film.

Go watch it. Even if you don't know Facebook, it is a good movie.

Michi

SF-style J-POP is the new version of its "counter-culture"

Last week, "J-POP Summit Festival" was held at Japan Town in San Francisco.  I was there on Saturday to help out my fiends from Toei Kyoto Film Studio, to promote their wacky samurai comedy "Metal Samurai".

Metal Samurai

I was actually AMAZED at the HUGE crowd of people there on Post street, where NewPeople J-POP center is located.  Honestly speaking, I have been a bit skeptical about Mr. Seiji Horibuchi's attempt in building this new venture, NewPeople and VizCinema, as the "J-POP Mecca in the U.S.", but my worries all got blown off.  The stark contrast of "old and stale" Japan Town image and the colorful "kosupure" ("costume-play") people strolling around was so interesting.  It was not exactly "authentic Japan", or even "Akihabara copy", but was more new "San Francisco style" J-POP, integrating its own "counter-culture" roots with cosmopolitanism, with a dash of familiarity with Japanese American history here in this city.

I am really curious how this new "SF-style J-POP" will eventually evolve.

Michi