Global Voices Online

W. David MARX at META no TAME writes about the flaming of Mainichi's “WaiWai” column on 2channel, Japan's largest internet forum. Mainichi announced late last month that the column had been discontinued due to a harsh reaction from Japanese audiences, upset at the often sensational choice of topics covered in WaiWai articles.

A post by blogger boiledema [ja], offering an alternative perspective on the background of Tomohiro Kato, offender in Sunday's Akiba massacre, has drawn a huge reaction, with over 1200 bookmarks [ja] on Hatena. boiledema suggests that Toyota's system of Kanban production is being applied to human beings, through unstable short-term employment, leading to extreme isolation. Tomohiro Kato worked as a temp employee at a factory under Toyota, although boiledema emphasizes that isolation cannot justify Kato's crime.

Edo from Pink Tectacle introduces a digital art genre by Yoshitaka Kawakami. Most of the works are about haunting look of school girls. The artist's gallery is here.

Blogger mojix links to a film [ja] posted at YouTube showing Tokyo in the year 1935.

Blogger smashmedia comments [ja] on a CNET article [ja] explaining that mobile carrier DoCoMo is planning to change the ordering of certain “i-menu” items on mobile phones to reflect the size of monetary bids from companies, rather than reflect preferences of users.

The new localized version of Twitter in Japanese has been launched, as reported by Joi Ito, Asiajin, and the Polar Bear Blog. The Japanese version, unlike the current English one, includes advertisements, and there is a plan to eventually export these ads back to the English version.

Japanese blogger Dr-Seton describes an urban legend [ja] about children in public housing who were kept inside, only allowed out to play in a small park. When one day the children were let free outside, rather than run around, they stuck to a very small space. He uses this story to discuss the issue of private and public space in the Tachikawa Flier case, in which three Japanese anti-war activists were arrested for distributing fliers in the Tachikawa army barracks. The Japanese Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the three activists on April 11th.

Japanese blogger Tokuriki Motohiko at tokuriki.com reviews the book [ja] “Next generation advertising communication” (次世代広告コミュニケーション） by Yokoshima Ryuji [ja]. The book considers the gap between the methods of mass marketing and those of Internet advertising, a gap which, from his one year of experience at the Agile Media Network, Tokuriki has felt very keenly.