Japan, Internet & Google
As my wife and I begin to prepare ourselves for our return to Japan sometime in 2009, our conversations and interests have starting to move in that direction. A post by Serkan Toto, “Google’s Strategy in Japan: Avoid Yahoo and Take over the Mobile Web First,” caught my attention today. As I have indicated before, Yahoo dominates in Japan by offering quality links and providing what the 94 million web population wants. It is interesting to note that Japan has a 74% internet penetration which is the greatest in the world with USA at 70%. Google’s strategy to compete with Yahoo in Japan is to offer new ways of mash-up with phones which may be successful when one considers the advanced technology of phones there.
I personally want to slowly but surely write in the area of introducing Japanese biblical/theological websites and blogs to the English reading world. Japanese biblical/theological scholarship has been cutting-edge for years. Even Anchor Bible Dictionary found it important to review both OT and NT scholarship in Japan. (See the articles by Kiyoshi K. Sacon, Biblical Scholarship, Japanese: “OT Scholarship” and Kikuo Matsunaga’s companion article “NT Scholarship.”).
I know that I will be working with the “iclass” at Central Bible College, Tokyo and therefore am wanting to assist in further developing the digital biblical/theological works in Japan.
