I was really surprised to learn that Japan is commonly used as a test market for the rest of the world. I would have assumed that most companies would test their products in the United States, in larger cities like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc., but apparently Japan is a more sophisticated audience. Japan has over 110 million mobile phone users, and many of them use a mobile phone for online research just as often as they would a computer. In this sense, I think the United States is a little behind; from my experience most U.S. sites are accessible by mobile phone, but I find their online website to be more user-friendly. In upcoming years, it will be interesting to see if more companies begin to focus on “mobile-phone” marketing, in order to make their online sites even more accessible 24/7, eliminating the need to use a regular computer. Again, I assume Japan will be a leader in this industry as they are a test market to demonstrate the most effective ways to market a product in a high-tech industry.