This week I'm writing in from the SG Tokyo field office on an all expense paid trip to research the future of communication and global interconnectivity. OK, that's not entirely the truth, I am in Japan but that's about where the line to fiction starts blurring. A guy can dream can't he? Actually I am kind of researching communication but with a much more "how the crap do I stay in touch with my friends" approach rather than the "what does the future hold" perspective. Turns out it's both easier and harder than I expected.

If you've been following my columns here you know I'm kind of obsessed with communication to begin with and during ordinary daily life in Los Angeles I prefer IM and SMS to the phone, but would rather get a call then an e-mail. In planning this trip I knew a good bit of that was going to be thrown into an uproar, but was also excited to see what tools people I'd be hanging out with in Japan were using and how they were using them. Everyone I talked to prior to the trip said renting a mobile phone from a kiosk at the airport upon arrival was essential, so I assumed the bulk of contact would be SMS based and arranged for a phone to use during my trip.



Additionally I was curious how I'd stay in touch with my friends in the states. I've also got a friend from LA who is in Thailand right now and thanks T-Mobile she has free SMS coverage there which made contacting her from LA no problem, but a bit trickier from Japan where it's no longer a local number to send or receive from. How would all this play out?

Not surprisingly some contact forms didn't change at all, minor time zone differences aside. I could IM and e-mail with people the same as always. Site messaging (like mail here on SG) also worked the same as always and was really helpful. Voice to the states wasn't that tricky so long as I had a laptop thanks to several VOIP options. For a very small per minute fee I can use things like Gizmo Project or Skype to call any phone number on the planet. I can also sent SMS messages with Skype to US numbers for about $0.12 each, but people can't reply back to those. Both of those services also let you make calls to other people using them for free. You can also flex your inner nerd with gaming options like Teamspeak if you already use that, but I wouldn't recommend trying to set it up just for a trip.



As for in country communication, it's not SMS at all. In fact no one I know here is using SMS for anything. This doesn't mean they aren't using their mobile phones, they are - all the time actually - but instead all messaging is e-mails (or mobile mail) directly to the phones. This seems to skirt some kind of high SMS charge in some way. This is amusing actually because originally SMS gained popularity in many countries because it was much cheaper than voice calls. Interestingly enough nanoblogging service Twitter is benefiting here as well because of the mobile and direct messaging options. You can't use SMS for it, but you can use your mobile phone's browser and send direct messages through twitter to friends here in Japan (or anywhere in the world) for free. Several people I've talked to are doing this, as well as just keeping an eye on the mobile page to see where their friends are. Twitter actually solved the issue for my friend in Thailand. While it's not as direct as an SMS that she can reply to her from Los Angeles, we can still keep in touch easily and basically for free.

This is the trick, almost every single person I've seen has a phone, and it's usually out in being held in one hand and stared at. People on the trains, people on the streets, everyone. Conversely, I can probably count on one hand the number of people I've seen talking on their phones, and I'm including myself in that number. To add to that, there are signs everywhere prohibiting you from talking on your phone, so much of the text based mobile usage might stem from that as well. There are also pay phone booths everywhere but I haven't seen a single one being used yet which is certainly tied into the mobile aspect. If people aren't using their mobile phones to talk on, who might someone call from a pay phone? I've heard these are slowly disappearing as well, much the way they are in the US.



What does all this mean? It just means the way we communicate with each other, those next to us and on the other side of the world, is constantly evolving. I can't wait to see where we go next from here.