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，我到日本进行了一次商务出差兼散心旅行。在十天的行程里，特别值得一提的是我见到了母校同学Bill。他是个网站设计师，在OSAKA工作近二十年了。从马萨诸塞来的LAOWAI和新汗布舍尔来的GAIJIN（中文和日文中外国人的不同发音）在OSAKA的繁华地段的一条街道上见面了。我们出去吃美味的日式煎饼菜午饭。

真正的接待，是午饭之后，Bill带我去了最大的手机市场。令我震撼的倒不是市场规模，而是连最基本的手持设备也具备的丰富功能。条形码读取使人们能够用手机付款，自由选择参加基于定位的市场活动，流媒体高清电视（高端设备），还有很多。最明显的手机功能是高质量的移动互联网的普及。很多人视其为最主要的上网方式，甚至家里面都没有个人电脑。

我带着一个问题离开日本：什么时候中国网民能够从电脑上网转到手机上网呢？

当然，对普通消费者来说，前提条件是技术上是可行的，无论是质量还是价格。不过，同样重要的是中国消费者能否将新技术用于日常生活中。中国拥有5亿5千万手机用户和2亿9千万上网者，似乎消费者将会追随亚洲手机的领导者韩国和日本。Web2.0的评论者Luyi Chen认为，“在中国，人们还无法真正用手机上网。”

Luyi Chen描述了中国移动的社交网络139.com，也简单介绍了中国联通的相同服务u-powerbook.com。139.com不同于其他社交网络如Kaixin001或者Xiaonei，因为其专注在手机网站。其主要功能之一是用户能够保存他们的SMS。中国每天SMS的发送量数以亿计（根据中国信息产业部），对于这种人际交流的重要方式来说，这是一项实用功能。

这些服务无疑可以被整合进未来的移动互联网。其提供者毕竟是中国移动和中国联通这样的公司。手机供应商可以悄悄利用在线社交网络服务来监测和分析消费者行为，发现移动在线之外的需求，然后调整相关的服务。我不知道何时中国手机产业能够达到我在日本所见的那种水准，恐怕我等不到那一天——我发现有个刚刚打折的商品，就在我当前位置五十米之内的某个商店里，然后我扫描电子条形码付款，而这一切不过是用手机。

更新：Jeremy，日本观察家，通过EMAIL告诉我真实情况：

条形码读取确实可以扫描方形条形码，帮助人们找到广告或者促销的网页。手机能够用来支付，像在美国使用的Mobil Speedpass stick（这是什么？），只要在手机服务提供商那里注册即可。这是一种手机内部的芯片，启动后就可以通过扫描装置支付货款。甚至能够在火车站旋转栅栏买票。你花费的金额由下个月手机账单支付。和很多人一样，直接自动从你的银行账户里扣除了。