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Barely a week ago, my posts on Mashable were down to a minimum, as I was traveling in Tokyo, Japan. Lunarr, a service we've covered here at Mashable in the past, organized a fantastic trip in an effort to begin bridging the gap between American and Japanese web 2.0 startups. I've finally gotten the videos uploaded. You can view them on Mashable's YouTube channel here.
I, along with three other bloggers, took the ten hour flight from San Francisco to Narita (I watched Jumper, 27 Dresses, and everything I had on my iPod--stupidly, I did not sleep). While in Tokyo, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people, and also discuss some of the main differences between the web 2.0 scene here (cliche, but relevant) in the states and that in Japan. Eerily enough, I was also in Akihabara days before the tragic killings that happened earlier this week. But when it comes down to web 2.0 startups, I noticed most of the larger gaps occurr around the following:
mobile devices and application development and implementations therein
government intervention, involvement and planning
investment infrastructure, interest and support
online press via blogs and other forms of social media
More Details--The Breakdown:
In Japan, I noticed pretty quickly that the mobile devices were being used for far more than what we experience here in the states. The development process for applications made for mobile devices is somewhat simplified as some of the necessary software and support is more standardized on mobile phones. One byproduct of this is a greater interest and adoption rate for mobile applications than for web applications. Mobile applications and the surrounding culture is more like the states' web 2.0 culture when it comes down to usage, investment and ability to monetize.
The government in Japan is also involved from an earlier stage when it comes to web development, and is currently installing programs for spurring innovation around future services. See here for my coverage of some of Japan's government-run programs, based on my meeting with members of METI.
In speaking with a handful of venture capitalists in Japan, it's clear that there's a heavy interest in mobile applications, a wary eye towards easily implemented global growth, and a defined hope for well-designed location-based services on the web and mobile devices. See here for a video of one garage startup (literally) that is creating an interesting way in which to execute geo-tagging.
The online press through blogs and other social media is also not as widespread in Japan as it is in the states, in part because of the minimal number of professional bloggers and the inability to easily monetize a web-based publication. This speaks to the larger cultural differences between our two tech scenes.
Nevertheless there are a number of notable people in Japan that are pushing blogging in a big way. Hisashi Katsuya, Venture Development Executive, Japan Representative, at IBM’s Venture Capital Group, is one such blogger. His content can be found at Venture BEAT, which is distributed on CNet. Another good blog to check out is Asiajin written by Akky Akimoto, which we're grateful to have as a participant in the yearly Mashable Open Web Awards, which collaborates with other blogs--it's the community thing to do!