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Im sending this from my mobile.. not for any particular reason but just because i can (^o^) .. and thats the great thing about phones - they are becoming an essential part of everyday life and the potential for handy, useful services that can be delivered by them is astounding, and ofcourse if a service is handy and useful it will probably make money. In Japan and Korea the technology is well established and the mobile phone application is truely everywhere, everyone from kids to adults are downloading and playing games, checking train times and catching up with the latest show biz gossip. It is no exageration to say that everyone is using the mobile service for more than just phone calls and that everyone is expecting to use the phone more and more for applications that will probably end up putting the internet to shame.

At the moment there are three major networks in Japan that provide a full service of online data content, the biggest of which is NTT DoCoMo who have recently expanded into Europe, followed by EZweb and then Vodafone who began life in the UK. Each of the networks provide a cut down internet that their users can surf from the handset. Similar to WAP but with much nicer graphics, usability and speeds the mobile internet has grown to a level where it has now reached a critical mass and soon every business in Japan will want to have a mobile site. The three networks run their internet services on three different technologies and most content providers in Japan provide intelligent websites that will detect what network the phone is using and then use the correct technology when displaying the site.

The most popular site in Japan at the moment is called 'girlswalker.jp' and is a magazine style site with fashion, makeup and gossip aimed at teenage girls. Other popular sites range from the mondane: like the very practical and accurate JR lines train timetabling service; to the fun Konami game downloads center through to the tons of racey sexually explicit content available. The services available are growing daily and there is content to suit all ages in this vastly contrasting metropolis of tradition and technology.

Well as fun as it has been I will have to stop there as writing this much on a tiny handset is proving to be really hard work... there are some things after all that mobile phones will never be able to do well.