David Harper’s Different Things

By Gail Nakada, 17 May 2005 | View Original Article Here

Word to the Wireless — Japan's KDDI will launch a free mobile weblog system, dubbed Duoblog, for subscribers to its 3G WIN EZ Web service on 19 May. In a first from Japan cellcos, users can access and update these mobile blogs directly from their handset or PC through the KDDI Duogate portal. Duoblog sites will be fully customizable with backgrounds (skins), emoticons, images, and applications. Maybe your humble scribes here at WWJ should sign-up and join in the fun..!?!! Overseas mobile sites like WinkSite and Hip-Top Nation (to name a few) already provide tools to create free moblogs (mobile blogs) or mobile editions of web logs that can be accessed worldwide from Web enabled cell phones, PDAs and PCs.

At press time, NTT DoCoMo spokesperson Tomoko Tsuda stated that the company has “no immediate plans” to launch a mobile blogging site. Vodafone Japan, too, is taking a wait-and-see attitude, saying they would “monitor market developments in this regard.”

The New York Times takes notice of Wireless Ink's mobile publishing efforts with”A Library And Cinema In Your Pocket” - by Doreen Carvajal (Article also appeared in The International Herald Tribune on Dec, 5th. under the title, “Plot Heats Up On Cellphone As 'Mobi-Lit' Tests A Pulse“.)

The article describes in broad strokes the efforts of various companies (including Wireless Ink/WINKsite) pioneering the publishing of media to be consumed on mobile devices.

The folks over at MocoNews.net also noticed our mobile book publishing efforts commenting, “This makes a welcome change from the normal content on mobile phones, which the carriers and other content providers are trying to keep as restrictive as possible.”

Read the full articles:

• A Library And Cinema In Your Pocket, The New York Times
• Plot Heats Up On Cellphone As 'Mobi-Lit' Tests A Pulse, International Herald Tribune
• Books To Your Mobile Via WINKsite, MocoNews.net
• Mobile Content “Almost Like Early Television”, paidContent.org

Read more about Wireless Ink's thoughts and efforts:

• User-Generated Content: Killer App Of Mobile
• Creative Commons Licensed Library Launches - Delivering Mobile Editions Of Books To Phones

Okay. Shameless self-promotion. Nethertheless, check it out at:
http://www.hiptop.com/oct2004.all.php