A wise man once said, there’s nothing social about social networking. As we got tired of going outside, facebook slowly dumbed us down and then twitter went in for the kill. The word interactive now probably means not actually interacting with anyone.
However, this may all change with a new little invention called the Poken which sounds like a cross between Pocky and Pokemon. But I digress. It’s basically an electronic business card or “meishi” as they say here in Tokyo. It comes in various cute animal shapes and easily fits in your palm. Simply touch it with another one and you can instantly transfer all your social networking data such as your facebook and twitter accounts. This might be useful when, after a few hot Kirishimas, finding a pen and paper suddenly doesn’t seem like an easy idea anymore.
Will it take off here in Japan? Japanese people aren’t really that into social networking. Mixi is popular but obsessively emailing your friends via mobile is where it’s at. What else can you do on long train rides into work in Tokyo?
It’ll probably be a big hit with the Gaijin folk here (foreigners) first as was the case with the iPhone. The Japanese slowly and cautiously started to take it up. I personally think it is a great idea which is well timed. It could be Poken mania soon…
We shall see. Will the Pokemon Poken?
Main site: http://poken.jp
Other posts you might like:
