Communicating your emotions in the online and mobile mails

I recently received an e-mail from a seminar organizer, as follows:

Dear Noriko-sama,

Thank you for subscribing to our e-mail newsletter. This is xxxx from Nippon Hanako(^-^). Only a few days remain this year. Thank you very much for your attention to our services throughout this year. (Note: the original letter was written in Japanese; the sender’s name was changed to protect the privacy.)

Isn’t it cute? The sender expresses her smiles by adding (^-^) at the end of the sentence. Actually, I have neither met her (the sender is a woman) nor talked to her. But I at least let down my guard against the e-mail from a stranger.

There are various pictures for expressing your smiles. The other day, I received a thank you mail from my rental office manager with a shy smile: (#^_^#).

Advanced Picture Communications by Mobile Phones

Japanese mobile e-mail systems are easy to use for sending pictures. Mobile phone carriers such as DoCoMo and AU have been offering HTML message services, such as HTML templates and pictures, to their users. DoCoMo has the Deco-mail (abbreviation of decoration mail) service for their users to decorate i-mode mails by changing the colors and fonts, and by decomailattaching to them images and even animations, which is shown on the left-hand side:

 

 

 

 

INSIGHTS OUT

Picture/Image is worth a thousand words for personalizing your messages.

Using images could complement text messages. For example, using a floral background with your e-mail could carry a feminine image when you send your message to your e-mail recipient. The manga could also soften the contents of your message for your recipient.

Furthermore, it may be convenient for Japanese to use images for communication, since the Japanese language is not as descriptive as English, and Japanese are pretty familiar with manga.

Mobile mails becoming the main communication tool for Japanese

Not surprisingly, the easy-to-use mobile e-mail services have surpassed the e-mail usage from PCs. Indeed, e-mail usage from mobile phones was higher than from PCs at the end of 2005, according to the Institute for Information and Communication Policy (IICP).

Internet service providers such as NIFTY also provide templates for Deco mails so that they can attract and maintain their users even with the mobile phone services.

Caution about to whom you send the pictures

Some Deco mail pictures are appropriate for some age groups, but they are not for everyone. For instance, I would be speechless when I received an e-mail from someone for the first time. How about you? Do you like it?

Thank you for reading my blog to the end! (^_-)-*

 

January 11 2008 09:34 am | Communication

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