• For His Blog: Man Has Been Taking Pictures Of Same Vending Machine For 5 Years

    Serkan Toto

    Dr. Serkan Toto is an independent consultant and advisor focusing on Japan’s web, mobile and social gaming industries. Based in Tokyo, he works together with financial institutions and startups worldwide. Serkan has been the Japan contributor for TechCrunch.com since 2008. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. → Learn More

    Thursday, January 13th, 2011

    It’s no secret the Japanese love their vending machines, but this is extreme: a man from Sapporo has been taking pictures of the same vending machine (almost) every day since August 2005. The man, a person called Ikeda, is still uploading each picture on a blog he set up more than five years ago just for his strange hobby – just for fun.

    I first thought this is either fake, a case of objectophilia or a viral marketing campaign by Coca Cola (the machine sells drinks), but it’s well documented in Japan’s blogosphere that Ikeda is a regular person (here‘s his Flickr account).

    When drinks or prices change overnight, Ikeda makes an effort to highlight every single change, as you can see below:

    What you see on top of this post is the original vending machine from August 2005. Pictured below is the new version (the machine has been replaced once).

    Via Asiajin [ENG]

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