ABSTRACT
The webcaster is the marriage of broadcasting and broadband network. However, despite many new entrants to the webcasting service, Japan has not yet seen a successful marriage, especially on the Personal Computer (PC). Japan enjoys the most advanced mobile internet services in the world. The number of internet-enabled mobile phones is 69.7 million, occupying 86% of total phones as of December 2003. Japan has unique mobile internet services, such as picture/video mail and picture characters in e-mail. Along with increased internet use, there has also been a dramatic growth in the diffusion of PC broadband since 2000. According to a quarterly survey by the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, the number of subscriptions to broadband services totaled 19.51 million in March 2005. Despite advanced broadband technologies, Japanese internet users rarely use the webcasting service on their PC.
