Building Search From Scratch

Japan has always prided itself on being a technology leader, so it rankled that outsiders—Americans all—dominate the local market for Web search. Yahoo is first, followed by Google and MSN, with Japan's Goo and BiGlobe trailing behind. This situation has apparently triggered many urgent meetings at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which last April launched a three-year campaign to rectify it by developing Japan's own search technology. Loosely translated as the Great Voyage Information Project, the campaign reflects the ministry's belief that a handful of Japanese companies and universities are sitting on technology with whiz-bang potential—if only they would join forces to release it. "There is a limit to what one individual company can do," says Atsushi Yasuda, deputy director in charge of the project.

In its glory days, METI was instrumental in building Japan into an industrial giant, but that was decades ago. Whether it can pick Internet winners has yet to be seen. Rather than trying to develop a Google rival, the METI consortium will focus on developing technology used to search and analyze information available not only online but also on mobile phones, smart-money cards and other electronic media, like real-time car navigation systems. The ultimate goal is to provide users more accurate, selective and personally tailored search results than those that are offered today.

Mobile giant NTT DoCoMo is among a dozen companies selected by the government to develop services that would become available with a next-generation search engine. DoCoMo is developing My Life Assist Service, which would provide data through GPS phones tailored to each user's geographic location and previous behavior. Team Lab, a technology company, is aiming to build a video search engine that also takes into account user behavior. Japan Airline International is putting together a flight-safety system that would use search technology to pull together weather reports, traffic records, personnel information and other factors relevant to airline safety.

So far Great Voyage has established a method of sharing research among members of the consortium that wouldn't get shared otherwise. But it hasn't yet generated much excitement in Japanese Internet circles. That may be partly because its budget is a modest $40 million. Critics also question whether any government-run effort could ever catch up with the likes of Google and Yahoo. Success, say Japanese officials, could also come through some combination of many niche technologies. The bureaucrats will have to be nimble.

© 2007