Asia's Mobile Mashup Free-For-All

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The gadget has 80 MB of internal memory, an external memory slot, and a Bluetooth function that lets users send photos via wireless connection to their printers.

PC-Quality Pages

Rival Korean handset maker LG Electronics is also trying to export high-end multimedia mobile phones to the U.S., where the mashup fad is also entrenched, though more PC-based. LG's Fusic mobile phone delivers an array of services over Sprint's (S) high-speed network. Subscribers can access Sprint TV and Sirius Satellite (SIRI) radio via the handset, buy songs, and copy tunes from one handset to another—or even transfer music collections to a car radio or personal computer.

Japan's mashup scene is more dominated by small Web 2.0 venture businesses than programming-savvy individuals. A company called DigitalStreet has come up with software filters that let mobile-phone users view Web pages that would normally only be accessible from a PC. In the past, businesses had to direct cell-phone users to special Web sites that were pared-down versions of the actual site, with few graphics, loads of text, and limited content.

The new programs aren't limited to Web browsers. For instance, a program called Fileseek lets you check out the latest YouTube videos from your cell phone. Another add-on program gives you access to Wikipedia pages, which can be read and edited on the go.

We Know Where You Are

"Even though cell-phone browsers are getting closer to those designed for a PC, with most cell phone Net services you can't view digital videos posted on the Web," says Takateru Imaizumi, co-founder and co-CEO of DigitalStreet. "That's why these free software fixes are cropping up. There's going to be a big shift in Net-based services, which had been geared exclusively for PC users, toward cell-phone users."

In Japan, NTT DoCoMo is making progress tailoring Internet search for mobile telephony. The telecom's search engine, called i-search, activates a handset's global position satellite locator to let users narrow their search to the nearby area. So if you were looking for a nearby ATM, you wouldn't have to hunt for the address on your bank's Web site. Just enter the name of your bank and the location of the nearest machine would automatically pop up.

One could then trace the shortest path to the ATM using a 3-D map and a navigation program. "When searching from a PC and a cell phone, you have completely different needs," says Kiyoyuki Tsujimura, DoCoMo executive vice-president and head of products and services. "The user environment is different. The evolution of technologies will be different. A PC is like a telescope into the virtual world. With a cell phone, there's a merging of the real world and cyberspace, the physical and the virtual," he adds.

Push Button Friends

DoCoMo is also working with Intel on new "open-domain" technology specs that will allow future mobile-phone users to create their own operating systems and original browser menus, or load up more sophisticated game software on their handsets. DoCoMo and other mobile-phone operators, such as KDDI (KDDIF) and Softbank (SFTBF), are hooking up with popular social-network sites to allow users to blog or upload photos from their cell phones.

In the future, cell phones will likely feature a button that will automatically connect via the Net to a social-network site, which will greatly expand connectivity between handsets and home pages accessed through personal computers. Explains DoCoMo's Tsujimura: "If you had reservations for 10 at a restaurant for 7 p.m. but want to change that to 8 p.m., you might be able to tell all of your friends of the change by sending a message through a social network site to their cell phones."

Such are the blurring boundaries of Web. 2.0 and mobile telephony in Asia. Digital warriors on the fly are no longer content to use their handsets just for voice calls and text-messaging. A new day of content-generation and flexibility seems to be dawning all across the region.

Bremner is BusinessWeek's Asia Regional Editor based in Hong Kong
With Moon Ihlwan in Seoul and Kenji Hall in Tokyo