One tweet shook the Tokyo Metropolitan Gov't and subway

A 34-year-old Japanese salary man bought an iPhone 4. He loves it. However, he commutes on subways. He realized that cannot enjoy the iPhone Apps or twitter on the way to work. One day, he decided to tweet to Masayoshi Son (孫正義), the president of Softbank, the Japan's exclusive iPhone carrior. He complained about the mobile phone reception in subways on January 15, 2011. And Son replied.

Source: Twitter

He said "If Tokyo Metro agreed to install antenna, my company would do it. Let's start asking."

Then, he started looking for the twitter accounts of city officials, governers and politicians if any of them would catch the interest. Within 8 hours, the vice-govoner of Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Naoki Inose (猪瀬直樹) replied Son's tweet. In the next 2 hours, Son and Inose exchanged a few tweets to schedule an appointment.

Source: Twitter

In the afternoon of Thursday, January 20th, 2011, Inose and Son met at the office of Tokyo Metropolitan Gov't.

Naoki Inose, Vice-governor of Tokyo Metropolitan Gov't (Left),
Masayoshi Son, President of Softbank (Right)
Source: Plixi.com

Softbank offered to pay for the initial cost. Tokyo approved it. From now on, Softbank starts cooperating with other cell phone carriors to start installing antennas between subway stations.

Within this year, you will be able to use cell phones in the major subway lines in Tokyo.

On the other hand, you will have to reply your text message all the time. You will no longer be able to use the excuse: "Sorry, I was on the subway" in Tokyo.

But, oh my god, this was really quick.

A tweet by an ordinary Japanese man moved the president of mobile phone company, and then, moved the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This was all happened in 6 days. Twitter can really change the big corporation and the government in Japan.

All associated tweets of this movement can be found in the Togetter list (Japanese). You will find the several tweets from the Mayor of Osaka City as well. They are also working on it.