Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:18:00
From: hamano@glocom.ac.jp
To: kirk.goodall@jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Asahi Digital Entertainment Awards
X-CcMail-Address: hamano@glocom.ac.jp at Internet

Dear Sir,

Asahi newspaper company has the second largest circulation of newspaper in Japan.

Asahi started the Asahi Digital Entertainment Awards last year and I am the
chief jury. Each category has two awards, Content and Individual (or Group).
Last week, the jury committee selected the winners of the awards and the
result is as follows;

Grand Prix
Content: Tamagochi
Individual or group: James Cameron

HOME
Content: Pocket Monster
Individual or group: (non)

ARCADE or LOCATION-BASED ENTERTAINMENT
Content: Print Club
Individual or group: Walt Disney Imagineering

THEATER
Content: The Princess Mononoke
Individual or group: Dennis Muren (ILM)

NETWORK
Content: Mars Pathfinder (NASA)
Individual or group: Ryuichi Sakamoto

Congratulations ! Mars Pathfinder of NASA is the best award for NETWORK.

This is the second year of the awards and the 1996's Grand Prix is as follows:

Content: Super Mario 64,
Individual or Group: Starbright Foundation of Steven Spielberg

The ceremony will be held on October 8, during the Electronic Show at
Makuhari, Chiba. The Electronic Show is the biggest annual exhibition of the
consumer electronics in Japan. Every year, the attendants are over 400,000.
This year, the Electronic Show will be held from October 6 to 9.

If someone of NASA can attend the ceremony, we are very happy. Mr. Dennis Muren
of ILM will attend the ceremony, and Mr. James Cameron will
send his video message. If your people can not attend, we would very much
appreciate it if you could send us some video material which introduce your
company and, if possible, a video message for the ceremony?

Please let me know of the name of the person and the address so that Asahi
can send a formal invitation letter to NASA.

Your kind cooperation would be highly appreciated.

Sincerely yours,

Yasuki Hamano
Associate Professor
National Institute of Multimedia Education

cc: Mr. Oka (Asahi)
cc: Mr. Hattori (Asahi)

******************
Yasuki Hamano
hamano@glocom.ac.jp
Fax: 81-3-3576-7869
******************

Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 03:46:00
From: GILBERT.R.KIRKHAM@DOS.US-STATE.GOV
To: kirk.goodall%jpl.nasa.gov@STATE.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Your competition
X-CcMail-Address: GILBERT.R.KIRKHAM@DOS.US-STATE.GOV at Internet

Just thought that you would like to know what JPL was competing against:

From: Akihito Oka <akoka@ibm.net>
To: "'Kirkham, Gilbert R'" <GILBERT.R.KIRKHAM@DOS.US-STATE.GOV>
Subject: Thank you & Information for you
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 19:16:57 +0900

Dear Mr. Kirkham,

Thank you for your kind cares for our Awards.
In haste, I inform you of URL of the other network award nominees.
And for you, I add special URL of Sakamoto.
Please try and enjoy these sites.

PerfecTV!: http://www.perfectv.co.jp/
TBS DATA PARADE: http://www.tbs.co.jp/parade/index-j.html
Castanet: http://www.marimba.com/products/
W VISION: http://www.w-vision.com/wv/
Sakamoto Ryuuichi: http://www.kab.com/f/

Akihito Oka/ ASAHI Shimbun

It is a great honor for NASA to be able to receive the Second Annual Asahi Digital Entertainment Award for Networks. I am pleased to be able to accept this award on behalf of NASA today. I am the new NASA Representative to the US Embassy in Tokyo, Gilbert Kirkham.

I think that many of you may be familiar with the Mars Pathfinder Web Page mirror site in Japan. Many of you may not know that this site is the creation of Mr. Kirk Goodall at JPL and Mr. Hiroshi Suzuki at NASDA.

The Japanese Mars Pathfinder Web Page mirror site is one of 27 international sites around the world. There are 23 sites in the US.

According to Mr. Goodall, he got the idea started using a grass roots approach and then presented it to people high up in the organization, got them to exchange some official letters, and made everyone happy with the results.

It should be no surprise to any of you that Mr. Goodall is from Japan. He was born here while his parents were in the US Navy stationed at Yokosuta. Perhaps it was this Japanese background that led to the development of a page that is so popular in Japan.

In fact, as of the end of August, there were over 650 million hits to the Mars Pathfinder Web Site. As for the Japanese mirror site, 15 million hits have been recorded to date. The only other web site that might even surpass the Mars Pathfinder is the Diana Web Page, dedicated to the memory of the late Princess Diana, though I would be surprised if even that page could compete with the number of hits that the Mars Pathfinder received on July 8th, when NASA recorded a world record of 46,927,609 hits in a single day.

I think that you'll agree with me that the Mars Pathfinder Web Page is a unique demonstration of not only the power of the internet to bring to Earth pictures of planets thought to be millions of light years away, but also, more importantly, to bring people of different countries together in an international endeavor with profound consequences for future generations.

I would like to close by again thanking the selection committee for choosing NASA's Mars Pathfinder Web Page for this year's Second Annual Asahi Digital Entertainment Award for Networks.

Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 03:23:00
From: GILBERT.R.KIRKHAM@DOS.US-STATE.GOV
To: edward.c.stone%jpl.nasa.gov@STATE.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Award to JPL
X-CcMail-Address: GILBERT.R.KIRKHAM@DOS.US-STATE.GOV at Internet

Dear Dr. Stone

I thought that you would be interested to know that JPL received the Network
award from the ASAHI SHIMBUM for the Mars Pathfinder Website. ASAHI is a
highly regarded newspaper/tv network here in Japan, that has Japan's highest
readership and viewership ratings. As the new NASA representative to the US
Embassy here in Tokyo, I accepted the award on behalf of NASA JPL. It will
be sent to your attention shortly along with a translation of the award
materials to give you a better understanding of the significance of this
award. Let me assure you that this was a big deal: ASAHI ran a large
newspaper spread including a write up on the website and showed clips from
the award ceremony on its television network. With over 15 million hits to
the Pathfinder website mirror sites in Japan, contributing to the over 650
million hits to the website world-wide, it is safe to say that the Japanese
are extremely interested in and knowledgeable of JPL's accomplishments with
this mission. In our cooperative efforts with the Japanese space agencies,
the benefits for not only for JPL but also NASA as a whole are obvious.

Best regards,

Gib Kirkham
NASA Representative
US Embassy-Tokyo