Japanese cell-phone users don't just talk about weather — they vote on it

A surprising number of Japanese purchase their weather information from cell phones, services that don't just tell you if it's raining — they let you vote on it.

According to research by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), about 20 percent of Japanese check forecasts on their phones. Of course, TV reports and newspapers are the more common method, but 20 percent is no small potatoes and it includes people who are paying for the service.

Several weather services are competing via the official portals of cell- phone companies: DoCoMo's i-mode iMenu, KDDI au's EZweb and SoftBank Mobile's Yahoo! Keitai. Through all of those services, customers can get basic information, such as today and tomorrow's weather predictions. But most of these sites have pay-membership options as well.