Chris Salzberg at Global Voices has a great round-up and translation of the controversy around Google's Street View in Japan: Street View and Public Space. Chris provides a great view into how the markets for web services are different in Japan.
I'll provide Takagi-sensei's final comment on this issue (with the English translation provided by Chris.)
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What is needed right now is criticism against Google Japan for its botched localization, and negotiations about how to improve it. This is not a time to be arguing about generalities such as [questions of] what is privacy.
Do you want John McCain, accused of corruption in the Keating Five case, as the next president of the United States of America? I do not.
The New York Times reports that Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China.
Are you surprised that a) the Chinese govt. is spying on and filtering Skype traffic to China, and b) that the Chinese government's surveillance servers were mis-configured such that Canadian human-rights activists were able to download and analyze copies of the data in question?
This quote in particular is precious:
“I can see an arms race going on,†said Pat Peterson, vice president for technology at Cisco’s Ironport group, which provides messaging security systems. “China is one of the more wired places of the world and they are fighting a war with their populace.â€
This quote is amusing because it is Cisco itself (albeit not the Ironport group which was an acquisition) that sold the equipment to the Chinese government to enable the government to implement their "Golden Shield Project or the Great Firewall of China."
Ebay's response is grossly inadequate considering the ramifications of this news.
CMP Media Japan recently announced that a number of keynote speakers for the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo Japan have canceled and thus they are forced to cancel the event. This is unfortunate but not surprising. From the beginning, CMP Japan targeted the enterprise market in Japan, but that was a mis-match with the Web 2.0 core target audience, which is consumer-focused. 2007's Web 2.0 Expo Japan saw no participation from Google or Yahoo!, or Mixi or Kakaku or any of the key businesses in Japan who are working on consumer Web 2.0 services. Look at the list of businesses sponsoring the Web 2.0 Expo Japan in 2007. How many of those are what you would consider "Web 2.0?"
It is disappointing that this "premier" "Web 2.0" event in Japan is not going to happen, but in reality, I say good riddance. If Tokyo can support a real Web 2.0 event, then make it a real next-web conference.
This also means more attention to Open Web Asia or Web Directions East, which should be a much better "web" conference than the failed Web 2.0 Expo would have been.
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Microsoft Bob vs. Jerry Seinfeld. Who was the shorter-lived Microsoft campaign?
Microsoft Bob
Jerry Seinfeld
The FT has a good overview of some markets where Google is not leading search including China, Korea, Japan, Russia, Czech Rep. In addition to these, you can add Taiwan too. If there are other markets where Google isn't leading, please leave a comment.
Yandex, which handles 46 per cent of search queries in Russia, has been preparing since the spring for a listing on the US stock market. Seznam, which controls 63 per cent of Czech searches, has been the subject of a number of buy-out approaches, according to two internet industry insiders.
Along with just three others, these represent the only local companies that have prevented the global search business from turning into "Planet Google."
Baidu in China and Naver in South Korea each handle about 60 per cent of internet searches in their respective countries, while Yahoo Japan claims slightly more than half of its local search market.
Google still struggling to conquer outposts
Sukiyaki Western Django now has a nice HD trailer at Apple.
Famed Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, who is best known for cult classics such as Audition, Ichi: the Killer, and Children of Lost Souls, brings a fresh new look at the beloved spaghetti Western genre in Sukiyaki Western Django. Two clans, Genji, the white clan led by Yoshitsune, and Heike, the red clan led by Kiyomori, battle for a legendary treasure hidden in a poor mountain town. One day a lone gunman, burdened with deep emotional scars but blessed with incredible shooting skills, drifts into town. Expectations reach a boiling point as everyone wonders which gang the gunman will finally decide to join. Dirty tricks, betrayal, desire, and love collide as the situation erupts into a final, explosive showdown.
