Building an Internet Gateway for Japan: Nihon Net Research Foundation

Jiro Fukuda is a Senior Research Associate with Mitsubishi General Research Institute Inc. He serves as Chief Operations Officer for the Nihon Net Research Foundation.

Haruhiko Ichikawa of Tokyu Corporation, is serving as General Manager of the Nihon Net Research Foundation.

Russell Williams, Manager of International Business Development with Creative Link Corp., is the Nihon Net Research Foundation's Coordinator of Internet-Related Research and Business Development.

Making the Internet a part of everyday life starts with showing people the information that they want the most. Read about Nihon Net's plans and how they can help your business gain a presence in Japan through the Internet.

Computing Japan: Tell us a bit about Nihon Net Research Foundation.

Nihon Net consists of four companies: Tokyu Corporation, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Creative Link. It was launched in July 1995 to provide useful information to the public through the Internet. We currently have two sit es: http://nihon.net, based in the US, and http://nihon.or.jp in Japan.

As for the roles of each member company, the Tokyu Group is good at providing information and services based on people's needs and lifestyles; they are interested in offering information related to daily life, like bus and railway schedules, shopping centers, hotels, real estate. Mitsubishi Research Institute is in charge of public sector business, while Mitsubishi Corporation deals with the corporate side of things. Creative Link supports the technical part of the operation and is in charge of our da tabase construction.

CJ: How does Nihon Net differ from other Internet companies?

Fukuda: Our intent is not to be an Internet service provider, but rather a contents provider. We offer free information that is supported by specific sponsors, like a restaurant guide supported by local restaurants, as well as fee-based information, su ch as databases for which users pay a charge to access. Our goal is to be an Internet broadcaster -- broadcasting information over the Internet in Japanese to the Japanese people, and in English overseas.

Haruhiko Ichikawa: There is a lot of information on the Internet about Japan, but it is mostly company profiles or product information. We would like to help create more databases about Japan: Japanese culture, music, and so on. Our goal is that people who would like to know about Japan, whether from inside Japan or overseas, can connect to nihon.net to get the information they need.

And how are your efforts being supported financially?

Ichikawa: As this is our first year, we have a research budget; we are at the research stage and are not thinking about making money. Nihon Net itself is essentially a non-profit organization -- but if someone would like to advertise, they are welcome. Our main concern now is just to develop sources of content.

What are your immediate plans for nihon.net?

Ichikawa: We have started searching for interesting Internet sites in Japan, collecting information. Soon we will have a Tokyo restaurant guide, where people can add their own comments or information about new restaurants that they have found. The user s can play a key role in supporting the quality of the database.

Plus, we will provide GPS data; if you have a car navigation system, you can just put in the GPS data and your car will guide you to the restaurant.

We will also have a hotel database -- and bus stop databases, starting with the Tokyu bus company. In Japan, there are train timetables, but no printed bus timetables. If you want to know the schedule of a bus, you have to go to the bus stop and copy i t down from the sign posted. But with our database, you can search for "Tengenjibashi, no. 97 bus," and the bus timetable will come up. Our goal is to do this for all over Japan; it will be handy for anyone using public transportation.

Fukuda: We plan to offer a "super index" that provides information to the users horizontally, based on their specific needs. For instance, if a user inputs the key word "travel," our super index will return not only travel informati on but also point to hotel, transportation, and other relevant information. This differs from other Internet search services, like Yahoo, which use a tree structure to sort out information.

We also plan to offer a charged database service on the Web that will use Mitsubishi Research Institute's existing DIALINE-2 database service, now offered only to their clients. The Web service will start in September.

Furthermore, we plan to start a news delivery service, via e-mail, to our Japanese customers in Japanese. Initially, this will include news on US computer industries and information on China, for which we will tie up with a Chinese news agency.

Russell Williams: We would like to be one of the leading contributors to the Japanese Internet: not only in creating the viewable contents, but also researching the development of technologies that make it easy for everyone to see those contents and ac cess information that is of value to them. I think we're off to a good start.

Currently, the nihon.net contents are mostly in Japanese. Do you plan to make the contents bilingual?

Ichikawa: Yes, in the future. But first, we'll do the content in Japanese, then translate it into English. By the same token, there is a lot of good information overseas, but it is mostly in English. We'd like to translate this information and make it more available to the Japanese people. We are currently looking for foreign organizations with Web sites who are interested in dispatching their information to Japan.

Williams: For those programs which we are producing ourselves, where we have control over the contents, we will provide as much content in English as possible. But English-speaking users need to be targeted a bit differently than Japanese, in regards t o what types of subjects are most relevant to them, so we are basically going to have to plan the contents separately. There will be separate subjects, separate topics and reports.

We will offer information of value and convenience: for expats working here in Japan, we will have information about real estate agents who provide services in English to make finding apartments easier, or information about hospitals and other public agencies... information which is of value for everyday living in Japan. In addition to this, we will be publishing information to the rest of the world about Japanese culture, and about Japanese companies that wish sell products or services directly over the Internet.

One of our goals is to be a gateway to the United States and Europe. There is so much information out there; we would like to coordinate it and accumulate it so that, for the Japanese user, nihon.net is the most logical step outwards. We hope that for eign companies will say, "Hey, nihon.net is a very efficient and effective way of getting information to users in Japan." It is on that point that we would like to invite participation by individuals, companies, organizations, and educational in stitutions from overseas.

Electronic commerce is a hot topic now. Do you plan to get into this area?

Ichikawa: Yes, but in Tokyo, if you just step out onto the street, there are 24-hour convenience stores where you can buy almost anything, so I don't know if people in Tokyo really will want to buy things over the Internet; they probably will want to b uy something from overseas, imported consumer goods and software, but apart from that....

However, if the Internet is linked up with cable TV that would be a different story; the television audience is a whole new market. If we can link cable TV with the Internet, then maybe online shopping can be a successful and entertaining business.

And do you have any plans in this area?

Fukuda: Yes, as part of our long-term plans, we intend to offer an Internet-over-CATV service and cable telephony service by tying up with Tokyu Cable Television and Mitsubishi Corp. Tokyu Cable Television is currently conducting trials for the connect ion between the Internet and its cable TV service, and has announced that they will provide the connection service in April 1997. Nihon.net will connect either directly to Tokyu Cable Television, or place a mirror server in the Tokyu Cable Television buil ding. We will offer music or video services by making full use of the faster data transmission speed on the Internet-over-CATV.

We'll first use the system for a software development project in Kobe; the Mitsubishi Research Institute and Creative Link have received a subsidy from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry for contribution to restoration of the quake-ridde n Kobe City. We will then apply the results of our application in Kobe to Tokyo. This will be a 24-hour service that provides news, corporate information, video, and link services. We hope this will start next year.

In closing, can you sum up your business strategy?

Fukuda: Basically, we have three business strategies. The first is to serve the Japanese people by offering useful information for their businesses and daily lives; we have almost finalized our plans for this. Second, we want to introduce information a bout Japan, such as Japanese culture, to people overseas; for this, we are negotiating with such organizations as the Japanese Sumo association and a tea ceremony association.

And our third goal is to introduce overseas information to Japan; this may include translation services. So, to any foreigners interested in this service, we would like to say, "Please feel free to contact us."

About Wm. Auckerman