The Slow Pace of Change in Japan

I love running a unique company like J-List, really I do, but there are certain frustrations that come with being a Japan-based company. Japan is an island nation in more ways than one, and whenever a new idea comes along, people will generally study it for 5-10 years before deciding if it’s safe to accept. The Japanese prefer homegrown products to international open standards, which is why you can make a purchase at a convenience store by tapping your cell phone to a little plate, yet doing anything with international services like Paypal can be quite difficult. Web standards are also several years behind what’s being done in the U.S. and Europe, and just as Adobe Flash is giving way to better technologies like Javascript and HTML5, it seems that more Japanese websites than ever are embracing laptop fan-revving Flash content. But the biggest frustration for me is the lack of support for RSS feeds on the Japanese web. RSS is an incredible technology that lets websites publish information in an XML feed that can be read by RSS-aware applications like Google Reader or most web browsers or email programs, allowing a J-List reader to follow, say, new products added to our bento category, or any product with the word “Hello Kitty” in its description and never miss anything. Since Japanese publishers each like to create their own information delivery system from scratch, it’s always a challenge for us to find the products we want to carry on the site for you.