June 2001 Issue

On the cover: Takeshi Natsuno, facing the world. Photograph by Andrew Pothecary

June 2001
No. 20

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June 2001 Issue

In Touch
	From the Editor

Features
	Takeshi Natsuno: The Incrementalist The man responsible for content management and business model strategy development at NTT DoCoMo says he wants an evolution, not a revolution.

	Mission Impossible For Broadband Providers? Japan is witnessing a "rash" -- as one NTT exec puts it -- of broadband upstarts. But do any of these challengers stand a chance against NTT?

	Grading the Exchanges It's been a year since Nasdaq Japan and 18 months since Mothers launched. They were supposed to help high-tech startups go public and raise money. Are they doing what they were designed to do?

Filter
	A New Way to Read the Morning Paper One of Japan's largest newspapers is trying an interesting online publishing experiment.

	Idees Fortes Wireless newspaper delivery to your home -- anywhere in your home.

	Caffeine Junkies Get Free Broadband An oasis of free, fast Net access hopes to draw in the coffee-sipping masses -- and demo the latest in desktops, notebooks, and ISP offerings.

	Updata The "five hot startups" we picked in September 2000 turned out to be, well, hot. And the high-tech sushi joint we covered in March has added a new touch.

	When Population Density is a Plus In April we told you about Japan's wireless P2P scene, which could lead to a new kind of person-to-person network. The idea is catching on.

	Top Java Downloads on Cellphones Which i-Appli apps are popular?

People
	Henry Scott Stokes The urbane author of A Hundred Samurai Companies discusses the state of financial journalism and the role of small and medium-sized companies in the Japanese economy.

	Atsuki Ishida The CEO of FreeBit.com aims to make the free ISP business model a profitable one.

Research
	Statistics (PDF-formatted file, Acrobat 4.0 or later required) This month: The entrepreneurial stigma; Xbox vs. PS2; B2C e-com growth; the keitai generation; Asian wireless subscribers.

	Japan Studies Attitudes are hardening toward foreign workers in Japan.

Investor
	Special Report: Online Brokers More Japanese than ever are trading online, and despite the market downturn, Web brokers are booming. But how many will survive?

	The Other i-modes Fifteen million happy non-DoCoMo users can't all be wrong.

	On Our Radar Screen Ventures we're keeping an eye on: Video News Network, Enfour, ImaHima.

	Fishing For Online Riches An Osaka-based outdoor goods vendor gets more than just nibbles on its site.

In Parting
	Art Department Graphic designer Hajime Tachibana has chosen a strange new canvas for his latest works: the cellphone screen.

	Blowfish Enough with the cellphones already! And turn down that vending machine!