An article suggested by Rob:
Can Blogs Save MMS?

In my presentation at the First International Moblogging Conference I spoke about Moblogs for Business'. At the end of my presentation, Molly asked me, if moblogging isn't too complex and complicated for the normal user. I replied that compared to knowing the in and outs of a digital camera, photoshop, frontpage/dreamweaver or any other html editor as well as ftp, taking and sending pictures via a mobile phone on the net is a "kinderspiel".

Concerning my talk, this article is interesting indeed: Seeing Is Believing:

"I gave my guys 15 minutes of training, sent them out on the road for a three-week trip and had no problems," says Sevcik, 34. The greatest drawback right now (other than perennial complaints about small screens) is the fairly low quality of the images. In Japan, where these devices are already extremely popular, there has been a race to release a phone capable of producing images of 1-megapixel quality. In the meantime, U.S. entrepreneurs in industries such as architecture, construction or insurance will be the first to find business uses for camera-phones. In particular, the ability to send pictures directly to e-mail is a handy feature.

Via Emily

As we are also working on FOAF for our moblog, this is a timely read, especially Marc Canter's comment...

Identifying things in FOAF

Via Bernhard

On my last full day, I went to the Tsukiji - Tokyo's Central Wholesale Market - early in the morning.



Well, this is the last picture from Japan.
I also want to thank all of the nice people I met in Japan:

Thank you Yae and Sembo, you were wonderful hosts, thank you Joi for the phone and all, thank you Michiharu and Tony for your work for OSCOM, thank you Adam, Nobuhiro, Carsten, Michiko, Gen, Paul, Pete, Eduardo, Emi, Charles C., Totsuka, Justin, Stuart, Molly, Daiji, Alan, Scott, Mie, Mike... for this great conference and the partys. I already miss Tokyo.

Justin's Rehearsing the Future: First International Moblogging Conference Report:

But citizens instantly sharing photos is today's "Ahah" moment for personal digital publishing, guaranteed to attract billions of amateur authors. Kaywa Ltd. is developing a series of moblogging tools for users and businesses; co-founder Roger Fischer's explained his sense that mobile phone photos will engender enormous excitement. Recently, Fischer has observed scores of mobile phone photo hosting sites popping up all over Europe. Many of these sites didn't offer the power of weblogs though - they weren't linked into the web with comments, categories, navigation between entries, trackbacks; tools that internet-based webloggers are coming to take for granted.

See also:
ZDNet Japan
SAKURAI Michiharu's report
Mike Popovic's IMC report
Koh Aoki's Pics

and last but not least

Nobuhiro Seki's new ideas about moblogging.
The first two are already doable with our Moblog:

• necessary to enable a cellphone browser to read blogs easily - see moblog(XHTML/WAP)
• In order for everyone to upload pics to the blog, posting can be done via email - if via normal email or via mobile, it's the same thing

The left side of the audience with from left to right Scott S. Fisher, Mizuko Ito, Pete and Joi Ito in the first row

My presentation (best viewed with Mozilla Firebird) at the First International Moblogging Conference went fairly well, even though I encountered some connectivity problems. That's why I finally had to adlib about 90% of my presentation and more problematic I also couldn't show our KAYWA Blog Prototype.

The Kaywa.com Site will soon be online and betatesters will get a hand on the software in the next three weeks, so I guess humanity can live with this short delay.

Nonetheless I have to thank the whole Kaywa crew for that genuine effort they put into this presentation. I am proud of you guys and gals.

For interested Tokyoites
Contact me personnally via email (roger.fischer@kaywa.com) if you are interested to see the prototype as long as I am in Tokyo. I'll leave on July 9 early in the morning.

Btw: Pictures from the other side of the fence:
Moblogs
Boris picture from the right side of the audience
Pete comments
Christopher
Gen Kanai's notes
Sync a World
Gen Kanai's Weblog