i-zilla

[Dennis Robert Redmond]

I actually went and bought a newstand issue of Wired in order to snag an
article by William Gibson, who was dazzling as usual, but as a bonus,
there was a pretty good article on DoCoMo's i-mode system (Frank Rose,
"Pocket Monster", Wired, Sept 2001, pg 128-135). I didn't realize the
thing was a whole ecosystem of information, very carefully managed,
manufacturers, suppliers, content providers all cooperate in various ways,
trading short-term gain for long-term market share. A delicious
dialectical irony, that keiretsu capitalism should prove the perfect
spawning grounds for keitai socialism (I can see the billboards now:
"i-mode: the *other* lizard"). Anyone have first-hand experience with how
i-mode is reengineering East Asia's cultural DNA?

-- Dennis