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Japan increasingly turning to Facebook to reach potential tourists

Rick Martin 2013.03.24

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well.

The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week.

It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form.

Reaching beyond Japan’s borders

Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential tourists, posting photos from around Japan, and conducting quizzes. The company boasts cheaper tours than its competitors, and its Facebook presence (now with about 21,000 fans) is a place potential tour participants can comment and have discussions.

As for Japan’s official tourism arm, the JNTO, it has also been pretty active in reaching out on the social network. The organization operates a number of regional pages targeting a variety of countries, including the USA (153,000 fans), Singapore (141,000), and Thailand (92,000).

Of course, the efforts of these companies to promote Japan abroad via Facebook pales in comparison to startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which has racked up more than 11 million Facebook fans with its page about Japanese otaku subculture [2]. Likewise, another young startup under the KDDI Mugen Labo incubator program, Kawaii Museum JPN, is doing something similar, and currently has more than 3 million Facebook fans.

In addition to capitalizing on the power of Facebook, companies and organizations are using the afore-mentioned Line chat app to reach audiences and customers. This past week we featured the apparel brand Lip Service which has been using Line to connect with customers via smartphones, and the end result was a 50% boost in in sales over the previous week. Even the Prime Minister’s Office has a Line account, promising to push updates to citizens who want to stay in the loop using their smartphones [3].

I say ‘perhaps’ because many would say that recently the social network of choise is Line, although as a chat app many others would say it isn’t strictly a social network. ↩
To learn more about Tokyo Otaku Mode, see our feature on the young up-and-coming startup from last month. ↩
And as of this week, the Prime Minister’s Office also has its own smartphone apps! ↩

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5 more fun startups from Japan’s KDDI Mugen Labo

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.24

KDDI Mugen Labo, the tech startup incubator from Japan’s second largest telco, recently unveiled five startups which qualified to participate in the fourth batch of its incubation program. They will start further development and receiving mentoring very shortly. Let’s see what kind of services were chosen, and learn a little about the folks behind them. Class ¶ Class is an alternative social network that lets you experience a sort of virtual reunion by creating a network of ten strangers from the same generation as you. When you sign to the service, you’ll be requested to enter your date of birth. From there, the system will randomly choose someone whom you’ve probably never met but will likely get along with. The service aims to help adults experience the sort of friendships they’ve experienced back when they were students. To help break the ice, the app presents a discussion topic of the day. But interestingly it is a time-limited experience, so the network will be completely gone one month after you create it. Class is being developed by Tokyo-based startup We-b, which is also known for having developed a film or book-oriented Pinterest clone called Log. The app is still in beta…

kddi_mugen_labo_logo KDDI Mugen Labo, the tech startup incubator from Japan’s second largest telco, recently unveiled five startups which qualified to participate in the fourth batch of its incubation program. They will start further development and receiving mentoring very shortly. Let’s see what kind of services were chosen, and learn a little about the folks behind them.

Class ¶

Class is an alternative social network that lets you experience a sort of virtual reunion by creating a network of ten strangers from the same generation as you. When you sign to the service, you’ll be requested to enter your date of birth. From there, the system will randomly choose someone whom you’ve probably never met but will likely get along with. The service aims to help adults experience the sort of friendships they’ve experienced back when they were students. To help break the ice, the app presents a discussion topic of the day. But interestingly it is a time-limited experience, so the network will be completely gone one month after you create it.

Class is being developed by Tokyo-based startup We-b, which is also known for having developed a film or book-oriented Pinterest clone called Log. The app is still in beta but has acquired more than 2,000 users in three days since the launch.

Kawaii Museum JPN ¶

Inspired by Tokyo Otaku Mode (a subculture media service that has more than 11 million Facebook likes) Kawaii Museum JPN aspires to be a news source about Japanese characters for global audiences. So far it has 3.6 million likes. For monetization, they plan to develop an e-commerce platform specifically for selling character products, and to lead users to stores where they can buy them.

Kawaii Museum JPN is currently being developed by Ruby programmer Taketo Tanaka who previously worked with DeNA.

Canvas creator ¶

Canvas Creator is a tool that helps developers easily design a HTML5-based web app without the need for any coding skills, although the prototype is not yet finalized. The app is being developed by Wataru Miyazaki and his team who are still attending the University of Tokyo, but have won many awards at hackathons or business plan competitions in Tokyo.

Mygrow.jp ¶

Mygrow.jp is a tool for teachers which allows them to share and record the growths of their students. The app is developed by Tokyo-based startup Life is Tech, which has been running a bootcamp program for elementary and junior school students to master IT skills. The app visualizes how each students progresses on his or her learning path, helping teachers do their job a little better equipped with this new insight.

Trapro ¶

Trapro aims to solve big social issues such as the low birth rate or global warming. According to the platform’s developer Toshiki Abe, the biggest factors that prevent us from trying to solve social issues are: very few people are interested in it, there’s no information hub about such things, and few people have a solution readily at hand. Trapro allows you to post an article about social issues which you are conscious about, and then invite other users to work on it together.

Mr. Abe is attending the University of Tokyo and organizes a study community called Ridilover. It encourages university students to pay more attention to current social issues.

This 4th batch for the incubator program will start very shortly, and we can expect to see the results of their efforts at their presentation event three months from now.

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So you’re the new Japanese prime minister, eh? There’s an app for that!

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.23

On Friday the Japanese prime minister’s office unveiled smartphone apps for Android and iOS, with aim of giving the country’s leader more reach to among Japanese nationals. It uses a smartphone app framework called News Agent, which was developed by Tokyo-based smartphone app developer Brave Soft. The end result gives smartphone users easy access to announcements from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as well as a stream of news photos from summits and diplomatic conferences he has been attending. The app has no especially impressive features from a technical point of view, and often redirects you to the PMO’s Facebook page or Abe’s own Facebook page. However, for the younger generation who don’t subscribe to physical newspapers or watch TV news shows, it could be a good touch point for them to stay up to speed on Japanese politics. In addition, when the government has an important announcement, it will be published on the app as an official update from the prime minister, and you’ll get a notification as well. Last October, the PMO has set up an account on the Line messaging platform, which gives access to potentially over 40 million Japanese people, almost one-third of Japan’s entire population. On…

The app has no especially impressive features from a technical point of view, and often redirects you to the PMO’s Facebook page or Abe’s own Facebook page. However, for the younger generation who don’t subscribe to physical newspapers or watch TV news shows, it could be a good touch point for them to stay up to speed on Japanese politics. In addition, when the government has an important announcement, it will be published on the app as an official update from the prime minister, and you’ll get a notification as well.

Last October, the PMO has set up an account on the Line messaging platform, which gives access to potentially over 40 million Japanese people, almost one-third of Japan’s entire population.

On a related note, here’s some mobile apps published by governmental offices in other countries:

USA: The White House app ( iOS / Android )
UK: Official Number 10 app ( iOS )
Korea: Presidential Office “Cheong Wa Dae” app ( iOS / Olleh / TStore )

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5 photo apps with fantastic skin filters that Japanese women prefer

SCORE 9,491

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.23

It is probably safe to assume that on every Japanese girl’s smartphone home screen, they have a photo sharing app of some sort. Instagram is pretty mainstream in the country, but other popular photo apps seems to have one thing in common: Photo filters to make your skin look whiter and smoother. Here is a list of five apps with such filters that are likely to have nabbed a spot on girls’ smartphones. Bihaku Camera ¶ Bihaku Camera has an impressive 4.2 rating on Google Play so far, and with the app’s skin-whitening and smoothening features, freckles and wrinkles magically dissappear. This app is well-known among girls and according to R25, a popular free-paper by Recruit, members of the popular pop group AKB48 are fans of the app too. MoreBeaute ¶ Available on iOS, MoreBeaute is yet another such app which is popular among females. Skin-whitening and smoothening is done automatically whenever a photo is taken or chosen from photo library. The app easily creates the sort of pore-free skin that girls dream of. Prunelle ¶ In the past few years, Japanese girls — especially those in high school and college — began wearing colored contact lenses as part of…

Bihaku Camera ¶

Bihaku Camera has an impressive 4.2 rating on Google Play so far, and with the app’s skin-whitening and smoothening features, freckles and wrinkles magically dissappear. This app is well-known among girls and according to R25, a popular free-paper by Recruit, members of the popular pop group AKB48 are fans of the app too.

MoreBeaute ¶

Available on iOS, MoreBeaute is yet another such app which is popular among females. Skin-whitening and smoothening is done automatically whenever a photo is taken or chosen from photo library. The app easily creates the sort of pore-free skin that girls dream of.

Prunelle ¶

In the past few years, Japanese girls — especially those in high school and college — began wearing colored contact lenses as part of their fashion. And this photo sharing app, which was just recently released, is lets girls try out different colored contact lenses. Prunelle, which means pupils in French, has over 200 kinds of colored lenses, available in various sizes. If you find a favorite, the app allows you to purchase the product directly from the app.

DecoPuri ¶

At traditional purikura photo booths, skin whitening filters are a default feature. DecoPuri is your own personal purikura app that comes with over 400 decorative materials including stamps and photo frames. But it also provides five levels of skin whitening and smoothning. The app also deletes the camera’s shutter sound, which can be handy for those who want to create selfies when out and about!

Megami Camera ¶

Available for both iOS and Android, this app does more than just provide features to enhance the skin, but it also has twenty different filters for the eyes. Making your eyes sparkle or change color is just a tap away with Megami Camera. It has a 4.4 rating on Google Play, and you can see how it works in the video below.

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How one Japanese fashion brand is using smartphones to connect with customers

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.22

The O2O market in Japan is expected to reach 50 trillion yen by the year 2017. Obviously smartphones will play a key role in this growing market, and brands already face consumer expectation to leverage mobile devices in as many ways as possible. Smartphone penetration for teens and consumers in their 20s is said to be around 30% to 50%. One apparel brand targeting young females is well aware of this, and is using mobile for promotion to increase in-store sales and customer communication. It’s called Lip Service. Credge, the company behind Lip Service, recently released an Android app that deploys an O2O service called Push Shop, developed by digital agency Bilcom. Push Shop allows brands to develop their own mobile apps with a geolocation enabled push notification feature. The service is available for a monthly fee starting at 9,800 yen (about $103). As a part of its mobile digital marketing strategy, Lip Service is actively using chat application Line to provide coupons and sales information to the tens of millions of users here in Japan. Lip Service has accumulated over 20,000 friends currently on the platform, and through its promotional activities its sales have grown 50% compared to the…

One apparel brand targeting young females is well aware of this, and is using mobile for promotion to increase in-store sales and customer communication. It’s called Lip Service.

Credge, the company behind Lip Service, recently released an Android app that deploys an O2O service called Push Shop, developed by digital agency Bilcom. Push Shop allows brands to develop their own mobile apps with a geolocation enabled push notification feature. The service is available for a monthly fee starting at 9,800 yen (about $103).

As a part of its mobile digital marketing strategy, Lip Service is actively using chat application Line to provide coupons and sales information to the tens of millions of users here in Japan. Lip Service has accumulated over 20,000 friends currently on the platform, and through its promotional activities its sales have grown 50% compared to the previous week.

Credge operates an e-commerce service called Atomicboxx, which sees 80% of its sales come from smartphones. On the e-commerce site, the company recently added a feature that provides real time inventory information, updated every 30 minutes. The company plans to release an iPhone version at the end of this month.

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14 standout financial solution startups from Japan

SCORE 1,100

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.22

These days in Japan, there are a bunch of startups providing accounting or financial solutions, both for personal and business use. Let’s take a quick rundown of some of the more popular ones. BizNote by CrowdCast ¶ BizNote is a cloud-based accounting app that helps SME owners and startup managers handle their cash flows using their PC or smartphone. The app aims to simplify accounting, thus letting business spend their time on more important tasks. BizNote won the top award at the Yayoi App Contest, an Android app competition run by Japan’s largest accounting software company. It recently added key features like receipt scanning as well as data integration with major accounting software packages. It’s available in English and Japanese, and for free for the first 30-days. Apps are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Google Chrome. The app was developed by CrowdCast, a company founded in 2011 by Takashi Hoshikawa. He previously worked with Microsoft Japan and DEC Japan. Coiney ¶ Coiney is Japan’s first-ever smartphone-based credit card processing service. It’s similar to services like Square, Paypal Here, and Swiff. The company was founded by ex-Paypal Japan employee Naoko Samata and won the top prize at Rising Expo…

These days in Japan, there are a bunch of startups providing accounting or financial solutions, both for personal and business use. Let’s take a quick rundown of some of the more popular ones.

BizNote by CrowdCast ¶

BizNote is a cloud-based accounting app that helps SME owners and startup managers handle their cash flows using their PC or smartphone. The app aims to simplify accounting, thus letting business spend their time on more important tasks.

BizNote won the top award at the Yayoi App Contest, an Android app competition run by Japan’s largest accounting software company. It recently added key features like receipt scanning as well as data integration with major accounting software packages. It’s available in English and Japanese, and for free for the first 30-days. Apps are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Google Chrome.

The app was developed by CrowdCast, a company founded in 2011 by Takashi Hoshikawa. He previously worked with Microsoft Japan and DEC Japan.

Coiney ¶

coiney_logo Coiney is Japan’s first-ever smartphone-based credit card processing service. It’s similar to services like Square, Paypal Here, and Swiff. The company was founded by ex-Paypal Japan employee Naoko Samata and won the top prize at Rising Expo 2012, a startup showcase competition event held by CyberAgent Ventures.

The startup announced in February that it had fundraised 100 million yen (over $1 million) from four investors including East Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Shinji Kimura (the founder of ad platform developer AtLantis). It has partnered with Sumitomo Mitsui Card, the largest issuer/acquirer of Visa-affiliated credit cards in Japan, and is working together with them to accelerate merchant acquisition.

I previously spoke with the team when the service was launched last October, so check that out for more details.

Freee by CFO K.K. ¶

The recently launched Freee is a cloud-based accounting solution that aims to set SME owners free of tedious accounting tasks. By synchronizing your account to this cloud system (which is integrated with web services provided by banks and credit companies) your payments will be logged in the system using web-scraping technology. They are sorted into the appropriate categories corresponding to the items you’ve purchased.

It was developed by CFO K.K., a company founded in July of 2012 by ex-Googler Daisuke Sasaki and ex-Sony engineer Ryu Yokoji. They’ve been developing the service as a stealth project at their home, and fundraised 50 million yen (about $523,000) from notable US-based VC firm DCM in December.

Hottoscope ¶

hottoscope_logo Hottoscope is a data-mining company that provides market analysis and prediction based on the aggregated information from social media. It provides analysis to Bloomberg Terminal, one of the most famous information resources for stock traders.

The company was launched about 12 years ago as a kind of a hobby/study group at the University of Tokyo. Since then it has been providing various tools for analyzing social updates to prevent companies from being financially damaged by harmful rumors and misinformation.

Kanmu’s Card Link ¶

By associating coupons with your credit card, Kanmu allows you to get discounts from participating merchants when paying with a credit card. For merchants, you’ll be charged on a performance basis, and can reduce transfer fees while easily targeting a specific segment of customers. For the consumers, you even don’t need to print coupons beforehand or present virtual coupons with your smartphone at storefronts.

The startup was founded by Wataru Yamaki who previously worked with several web startups as an intern. He also has developed Marketgeek.

Makeleaps ¶

makeleaps_logo Makeleaps is a web-based invoicing solution that targets startups and SME owners. It was founded in 2010 by Tokyo-based (Australian) entrepreneur Jason Winder who’s also known for organizing Hacker News Tokyo. They launched the service in Japan because people here aggressively pursue product quality, which is why he believes his business can work globally once it succeeds here. In addition to invoice delivery via snail mail and fax, the startup provides an optional dunning service too.

Misoca by Stand Firm ¶

Misoca is an online invoice-issuing solution for startups and SMEs, a service provided by Nagoya-based company Stand Firm. The app is totally cloud-based and has features to send invoices to your clients via snail mail or fax.

Money Forward

Money Forward provides online personal accounting for individuals, allowing them to easily manage their daily expenses by integrating with their bank passbooks and credit purchase history with information scraped from their web account. The startup was spun-off from Tokyo’s famous online stock brokerage Monex in 2012. It recently raised 100 million yen (over $1 million) from several angel investors and WIT Corporation, a TLO (technology licensing organization) under Waseda University.

Mycredit.jp ¶

Mycredit.jp provides a credibility report of your finances, a sort of Japanese version of Experian or Equifax. By authenticating your identity over the phone, you will be able to get the report in just about 10 minutes after placing the order. This is intended as a service to check your credibility prior to applying for a house mortgage. Subsequently you can find a way to improve your standing for future borrowing from financial institutions.

The startup was founded by serial entrepreneur Russell Cummer who’s also running Acqush, a Tokyo-based social lending startup, backed by Dave McClure’s 500 Startups.

Paygate by Royal Gate ¶

Paygate is a credit card processor that works as an attachment to tablets and smartphones. Using it together with a small printer, merchants can issue receipts to customers at purchase. The product is intended for people like motorcycle messengers, or insurance canvassers.

The service was developed by a 5-year-old IT company, and fundraised a total of 100 million yen (over $1 million) from NTT Investment Partners and Mizuho Capital in its final seed round in 2011.

ReceReco by Brain Pad ¶

Tokyo-based data mining company Brain Pad launched an iOS app called ReceReco (receipt recording) last month. By scanning receipts with your iPhone camera, the personal accounting app can recognize what you’ve paid for, visualize it in diagrams, and even lets you to share to Evernote or Facebook.

Brain Pad was founded in 2004 and was ranked 23rd place on Deloitte’s Fast50 Japan, a ranking of 50 Japanese tech companies based on revenue growth in Japan.

Totte Okuru ¶

Totte Okuru is an iPhone app developed by Tokyo-based startup Pirika Works. The app allows users to easily record expenses by scanning your receipts. Unlike similar services, scanned images will be transferred to keypunchers and entered to the system manually, which enables reading of not only machine-printed receipts but also hand-written ones.

The service uses people living in the Tohoku region for keypunching, which goes a little ways towards helping some people affected by the 2011 East Japan Earthquake.

Ubiregi ¶

Ubiregi is a cloud-based POS (point of sales) system that uses an iPad at the storefront. Compared to conventional systems, it can be reasonably deployed and easily maintained, especially for individual merchants like small restaurants, standing bars, and accessory shops.

The startup was launched by Keita Kido in August of 2010, and raised around 20 million yen (over $200,000) from Voyage Ventures and Kronos Fund. It also has a capital tie-up with SalesForce.com.

Zaim ¶

zaim_logo Zaim is a smartphone app that allows you to input your expenses into an assortment of categories, thus gaining some insight into your spending habits thanks to its graphic analysis. The startup has partnered with OCN Kakeibo, a cloud-based household accounting solution run by NTT Communications, and allows users to shorten the time requirements of their bookkeeping tasks.

It was launched in 2011 by Japan’s notable geek girl Takako Kansai. Zaim was incorporated last September, and raised 42 million yen (about $450,000) from Japan’s top recipe sharing site Cookpad. My colleague Rick spoke with her a little more about the service in this Tech in Asia article.

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