Community Rejuvenation Made Possible by Community SNS[3]Yatsushiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture

Cell Phone Photographs and Access by GIS on the Increase

“Gorotto Yacchiro” Version 3 guarantees “reliability and safety” through profiles and groups that eliminate anonymity and the invitation function. In addition, key word search engine “WIKI,” category links, calendars and GIS are factors (or functions) that have access to information and “Gan Gan,” a facility that allows photos taken by cell phones to be uploaded, enables information to be transferred easily. In other words, these functions guarantee “realism.”

GIS (a 1 / 2,500 map developed by Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc.) has linked the internet with the real world. Events such as functions held at community centers and sales held at individual stores appear on GIS and are displayed as a pop-up by just pointing the mouse.

“Generally, the internet is thought to exist in a virtual space. People can move around freely but also abuse other people without being identified. However, this is not possible in a limited area such as Yatsushiro City. SNS allows interaction between the internet and the real world to be controlled.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

“Gorotto Yacchiro” has experienced a dramatic increase in users since the release of Version 3. The website is accessed twenty to thirty thousand times, six to seven hundred entries are made in the diary and two to three hundred messages are posted on the message board per month. Active members now exceed two thousand (which is eighty percent of the population of Yatsushiro City) and is increasing by one hundred to two hundred people per month.

“Coverage by the local newspapers and magazines has also contributed to this dramatic increase in users. It is also interesting to note that there has been a great increase in the number of local residents using the website. Furthermore, these increases do not only occur at the time of events such as the fireworks competition or the Myoken festival. There are now a number of active groups that engage in various topics.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

Groups with participants from areas other than Yatsushiro City such as the “Kirara Club Communication” and “Child Raising Mothers Club” are also active.

“I feel that that a community is growing around Yatsushiro City.”

However, Mr. Kobayashi is not entirely satisfied with the current situation. He would like to add functions that transmit timely information to cell phones, allow members to edit their own websites and provide shopping facilities.

“I am also planning to apply flash technology to a function that enables information to be exchanged in real time via video.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

This will allow users to conduct simple video conferences. The plan is to initially apply the function to meetings between staff in local government departments and then make the service available to the public if successful. Once residents are able to transmit video, the function can be used for a wide range of purposes such as disaster prevention, river and road maintenance and coverage of local events.

“What was once a simple community portal is now a developing gateway type community portal with real time interactive functions.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

However, this is in addition to Mr Kobayashi's main job of enhancing the main system’s functionality and attending to the electronic application system, thus, he says with a wry smile, the development of the new version is being considerably delayed.

Mr. Kobayashi would like to emphasize that this program is also available to other local governments. Since the program is made available as an OSS it can be obtained in CD-ROM form. There are already approximately 20 cases of the program being utilized by private companies and other local governments.

“I hope many local governments use the program. We could then link SNS with other SNS and possibly create a “LG-SNS” for employees of local public organizations to participate.”