Last year I went off on a part business part pleasure trip to Japan. One of the highlights of my ten-day adventure was when I met up with Bill, an alumnus of my alma mater who has been working as a web designer in Osaka for almost twenty years. The laowai from Massachusetts met up with the gaijin (Chinese and Japanese words for “foreigner” respectively) from New Hampshire on the streets of Umeda, a commercial business district in Osaka, Japan. We started by going out for a delicious lunch of okonomiyaki:

The real treat came after lunch when Bill took me to the biggest mobile phone market I have ever stepped foot into in my entire life:

What really blew me away was not the size of the market itself, but the abundant array of features that even the most basic of handsets had to offer. Bar-code readers so people could make payments with their mobile phone, opt-in location-based marketing, and streaming HD television(on the higher-end handsets), just to name a few. The most obvious feature is the widespread usage of the phones to access high quality mobile internet. It is used so much that for many it is their primary channel for internet access and they do not even have a PC at home.

I returned from Japan with one question: When will Chinese netizens make the transition from PC to mobile for many of their internet needs?

Of course a prerequisite is for the technology to be available both in terms of quality and pricing for average consumers. However, what is equally important is for Chinese consumers to be able to incorporate the new technology into their everyday lives. With over 550 million mobile users and 290 million internet users it looks as though Chinese consumers will follow Asian mobile leaders Korea and Japan. Luyi Chen a contributor of the ChinaWeb2.0 Review feels that “no one can truly connect cellphone with the web [in China] other than the carriers.”

Luyi Chen describes China Mobile’s social network 139.com and provides a brief introduction to China Unicom’s similar service at u-powerbook.com. 139.com is different from other Chinese social networks like Kaixin001 or Xiaonei , because its focus is on linking the web to the mobile phone. One of the main features enables user to keep a record of their SMS messages, and with billions of SMS messages sent every day in China (according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), it is a practical tool for this primary form of inter-personal communication. For more on SMS see these two previous posts here and here.

These services could definitely be combined with mobile internet in the future. The providers of mobile internet after all are companies like China Mobile and China Unicom. Mobile providers can potentially utilize online social network services to monitor and analyze Chinese consumers’ behaviors to discover what they want out of online mobile in China and then adjust their services accordingly. I do not know when China’s mobile industry will be at the level of sophistication of what I saw in Japan, but I can’t wait for the day when I can find out about a sale the second it happens, at a store within a 50 meter radius of my current position and then pay for the product with the swipe of an electronic barcode all with just one phone.

3G is picking up in China and I am curious to hear what your predictions are for China’s mobile market in the near/distant future. Please leave a comment and start the conversation…

UPDATE- Jeremy, an inside observer in Japan, just emailed me with this correction:

The bar-code readers are really for people to scan square-shaped bar-codes, which bring them to the webpage of whatever advertisement/promotion/etc… they are looking at. The phones can be used for payment, just like the Mobil Speedpass stick in the US, by going through a registration process with your cell phone service provider. There is a chip in the phones that is then activated and the phone can be passed over a scanning device when paying for stuff. Even over the train station turnstiles to pay for rides. The amount that you spend is then charged to you on your next cell phone bill, which if you’re like most people, it is directly and automatically withdrawn from your bank account.

去年，我到日本進行了一次商務出差兼散心旅行。在十天的行程里，特別值得一提的是我見到了母校同學Bill。他是個網站設計師，在OSAKA工作近二十年了。從馬薩諸塞來的LAOWAI和新汗布舍爾來的GAIJIN（中文和日文中外國人的不同發音）在OSAKA的繁華地段的一條街道上見面了。我們出去吃美味的日式煎餅菜午飯。

真正的接待，是午飯之后，Bill帶我去了最大的手機市場。令我震撼的倒不是市場規模，而是連最基本的手持設備也具備的豐富功能。條形碼讀取使人們能夠用手機付款，自由選擇參加基于定位的市場活動，流媒體高清電視（高端設備），還有很多。最明顯的手機功能是高質量的移動互聯網的普及。很多人視其為最主要的上網方式，甚至家里面都沒有個人電腦。

我帶著一個問題離開日本：什么時候中國網民能夠從電腦上網轉到手機上網呢？

當然，對普通消費者來說，前提條件是技術上是可行的，無論是質量還是價格。不過，同樣重要的是中國消費者能否將新技術用于日常生活中。中國擁有5億5千萬手機用戶和2億9千萬上網者，似乎消費者將會追隨亞洲手機的領導者韓國和日本。Web2.0的評論者Luyi Chen認為，“在中國，人們還無法真正用手機上網。”

Luyi Chen描述了中國移動的社交網絡139.com，也簡單介紹了中國聯通的相同服務u-powerbook.com。139.com不同于其他社交網絡如Kaixin001或者Xiaonei，因為其專注在手機網站。其主要功能之一是用戶能夠保存他們的SMS。中國每天SMS的發送量數以億計（根據中國信息產業部），對于這種人際交流的重要方式來說，這是一項實用功能。

這些服務無疑可以被整合進未來的移動互聯網。其提供者畢竟是中國移動和中國聯通這樣的公司。手機供應商可以悄悄利用在線社交網絡服務來監測和分析消費者行為，發現移動在線之外的需求，然后調整相關的服務。我不知道何時中國手機產業能夠達到我在日本所見的那種水準，恐怕我等不到那一天——我發現有個剛剛打折的商品，就在我當前位置五十米之內的某個商店里，然后我掃描電子條形碼付款，而這一切不過是用手機。

更新：Jeremy，日本觀察家，通過EMAIL告訴我真實情況：

條形碼讀取確實可以掃描方形條形碼，幫助人們找到廣告或者促銷的網頁。手機能夠用來支付，像在美國使用的Mobil Speedpass stick（這是什么？），只要在手機服務提供商那里注冊即可。這是一種手機內部的芯片，啟動后就可以通過掃描裝置支付貨款。甚至能夠在火車站旋轉柵欄買票。你花費的金額由下個月手機賬單支付。和很多人一樣，直接自動從你的銀行賬戶里扣除了。