Another Bit Valley

In response to the letter "Cheerleading for Bit Valley South" (page 2, March): I attended the Bit River meeting on February 9 at Osaka Castle Hall, and I was very impressed with what I saw. Apparently, the first meeting saw 50 in attendance, and 250 attended the second meeting. At this meeting it was announced that 300 had registered, but I think everyone who registered must have brought another friend or two along. People were either busy exchanging business cards (like myself) or listening to speeches given by the representatives from the major Japanese search engines -- Yahoo, Infoseek, Excite, Goo, and Lycos. I was amazed by the diversity of the people I met. I was even more surprised by the number of young Japanese entrepreneurs I met who were developing their own online businesses. These entrepreneurs were either still in school or had just graduated, and they were full of excitement about the future of e-commerce in Japan.

Lester Patrick
lester@pbclub.com