Information Visualization System Using Internet for Activation of Shopping Streets

This paper attempts to activate a large scale shopping streets (shotengai) using Internet technique. A new web architecture is made for activation of shotengai, which is a typical Japanese shopping streets in the city and towns. Recently, decline of shotengai is a serious problem by development of shopping centers. "Osu" is one of the most famous shotengai in Nagoya, Japan, which includes about 400 stores. We developed Osu shotengai official web site, called “At Osu". First, the information of 400 stores is collected at Osu shotengai. Next, for a new web site, "Information Visualization System" is proposed here to express information freshness of present shotengai situation. It includes "Message Upload System" which administers the information from stores using systematic output method by RSS1.0 effectively. Further, we introduce a new approach for competing for a store owner with another one by their prominence and attractive design, which is described in text information. This is useful for the web composition from image base to text base to increase motivation of store owners. By the new developed web site of Osu, number of visitors of "At Osu" has increased rapidly.