Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve all been reading about the growing popularity of Ustream in Japan. Softbank has acquired a huge share in the service and even opened up Ustream studios in central Tokyo for all us plebs to broadcast our lives.

Politicians are of course notorious for trying to get in on the latest craze, including SMS, so it was inevitable that they would start streaming themselves too. While former-PM Hatoyama had some success with Twitter, it seems, though, that his more regional colleagues are less lucky.

Osaka City Mayor Kunio Hiramatsu held a press conference yesterday which was simultaneously broadcast live on the web. Osaka, the second largest city in Tokyo, is often viewed as a fun but slightly uncouth place compared to the capital.

However, despite the Mayor’s attempts to keep up with the newest developments, according to reports on Sankei and others the broadcast was certainly not a success. The screen was apparently dark, the audio hard to make out, and only sixty people watched!