Softbank invested $20 million (about 18 billion JPY) in Ustream at the end of January, giving them a 13.7% share in the American streaming service. They don’t want to stop there, either, but hope to increase their investment to have a 30% controlling share by next July.
It would logical to ask why the Japanese mobile carrier is so interested in the service and so we weren’t overly surprised when Softbank’s CEO announced on Twitter that he plans to produce a Japanese version of Ustream by May.
The next step for Softbank will surely be to introduce the app for their own handsets. However, we are curious to see how the Japanese will react to the introduction of such a mainstream live stream video service.
Japan is a culture which almost religiously treasures anonymity and privacy, as witnessed by opposition to Google Street View. Tokyo kids and their iPhone toy is one thing, but every Softbank user wielding a potential streaming tool is quite another, and we doubt that the population is going to be happy with the invasion.
The alliance between Softbank and Ustream also makes an interesting parallel with the long-time collaboration between NTT DoCoMo and PacketVideo, cemented last year by NTT’s investment of $45.5 million (35% controlling share).
William is Editor of JapanTrends.com and a Project Manager at 
William, this is another great post. I especially like your cultural observation in which you point out that such a service may not be widely accepted by Japanese who prefer their privacy. I was surprised myself when I found out that Singapore allowed for Google street view – I would have thought that Singapore would have shared Japan’s concerns around invasion of privacy in regards to Google’s service.
@Joel. Thanks for the feedback. As a blogger things Chinese, what’s the situation there regarding internet privacy?
William, The Chinese government’s number one priority is to maintain social order and stability. The Internet is perceived as a threat to social stability, which is why the government has implemented restrictive measures such as the Great Firewall of China. This has the greatest impact on Social Networks and Internet search, because they both possess the ability to disseminate “sensitive” material, and unite netizens around “sensitive” topics. That said, most web-savvy Chinese can easily find ways around the government firewall. I recently read an article from a trusted source that Twitter users in China continue to grow at a steady pace. However, in general local champions in the SNS arena will dominate Western Internet firms in China (i.e. Alibaba’s Taobao over Ebay, Kaixin/RenRenWang over Facebook, etc.)