Since its launch in February in Japan, Sotsuen Net has attracted more than 5,000 smokers. Each pays a monthly fee of 260 yen ($2.20) - the average price of a pack of cigarettes in Japan - to get the service delivered to their J-Phone mobile phones. A collaboration between Mayumi Abe, a respiratory doctor at Tokyo Women’s Medical University, and the publisher Shogakukan, the service offers the kind of feedback you might get from a support group. Each day you visit the site and check either “smoked” or “didn’t smoke.” If you smoked, an image of an angry Dr. Abe appears with an admonishment (“Do you want to die of lung cancer?”).
The virtuous see a happy Dr. Abe and a black swan. “The Japanese word suwan sounds like ‘swan’,” says Bunsho Kajiya, a Shogakukan director. Each day you go without a puff, the swan turns a bit whiter.
When the urge to smoke strikes, you can also send an S.O.S. to Dr. Abe. The service replies with one of hundreds of useful suggestions (“Why don’t you refresh yourself with a glass of water?”).
With 54 percent of men and 14 percent of women smoking, and one in two owning a mobile, the potential market in Japan is huge. Trouble is, nobody knows how many subscribers have truly quit smoking, and how many cheat just to see the swan turn white.
The cluttered secondhand bookshops on London’s Charing Cross Road seem like remnants of a bygone era. But they’ve gotten new life from the Internet. Half of all secondhand bookstore in Britain sell books on the Web, compared with less than 10 percent for all industries, according to a government survey. Search engines have made it easier for customers to shop online. “Tourists come by the shop when on holiday and then order from us when they go back home,” says Anthony Rhys Jones, manager of Henry Pordes Books. Since bookshops have always made out-of-store sales, they’re used to describing books for people who can’t see them.
