Softbank invested $20 million (about 18 billion JPY) in Ustream at the end of January, giving them a 13.7% share in the American streaming service. They don’t want to stop there, either, but hope to increase their investment to have a 30% controlling share by next July.
It would logical to ask why the Japanese mobile carrier is so interested in the service and so we weren’t overly surprised when Softbank’s CEO announced on Twitter that he plans to produce a Japanese version of Ustream by May.
The next step for Softbank will surely be to introduce the app for their own handsets. However, we are curious to see how the Japanese will react to the introduction of such a mainstream live stream video service.
Japan is a culture which almost religiously treasures anonymity and privacy, as witnessed by opposition to Google Street View. Tokyo kids and their iPhone toy is one thing, but every Softbank user wielding a potential streaming tool is quite another, and we doubt that the population is going to be happy with the invasion.
The alliance between Softbank and Ustream also makes an interesting parallel with the long-time collaboration between NTT DoCoMo and PacketVideo, cemented last year by NTT’s investment of $45.5 million (35% controlling share).
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