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NTT DoCoMo to start providing i-mode service beyond Asian markets

Basically, to the uninitiated, i-mode is what WAP (which we use here) should have been. It uses GPRS and you get charged not per total transaction but per packet relayed to your device. That means checking email, weblogs/journals and news is more feasible as it's more economical and a lot closer to real time than SMS tends to be. And none of that WML bullshit!

London and NYC are the first markets. Southern Ontario does have GSM service now, so it's just a matter of time before it comes to Toronto and surrounding areas.

DoCoMo should cut a deal with palm/handspring and work towards offering their services on Palm devices. A simple Palm OS device with pre-paid service and i-mode capability aimed at IM obsessed teenagers and students could totally slay. Why? That parental excuse "yeah, mom, I really wanna stay organized FOR SCHOOL and this could really help" would work perfectly to sell 'em like hot cakes. Kids could be burning a lot of their massive disposeable income sending IM's to score weed and hookup to parties like nobody's business.

Heck, cut out the hot-sync cradel all together and let 'em backup and add updates via i-mode/GPRS. Take out graffiti and add a thumb-board to minimize cost. Cut a deal with local GSM providers to get pre-paid cards in every 7-11 and bingo, I think it could be a new youth-pop phenominon. Subsidize it with alkaline battery manufacturer placement. Add an inexpensive SD card mp3 player add-on to push that platform into acceptance. Profile the users based on theirr music listening habbits. Also provide software applications for sale at various retail outlets (including convience stores) in the form of voucher cards. Simply buy the card, enter an ID and password and bingo, the device downloads the application via the GPRS connection. Kids software like digital mood rings, pets, boyfriend/girlfriend compatibility tests, video games. $5 a piece for such "junkware" would work fantastically. Developers could pump them out like hot-cakes with a licensing fee coming straight out of their commission for each license they sell.

Hire lots of pop savy designers to create fashionable face-plate replacements and trendy device bags that display them to impose mass peer pressure. Impliment a profiling/passport system as to generate revenue via highly targeted advertising and divert it towards highly subsidizing the hardware.

Think about it, Palm's biggest problem is that their market is pretty much limited to tech savvy geeks.