Today Line Corporation further expanded its mobile repertoire by announcing a Line News mobile app for its home market of Japan, available on both iOS and Android. The company hopes to leverage its experience from running Livedoor News and Naver Matome, with the goal of being the top mobile news destination in Japan.
Line has a news editorial department which will pick topics to present in a number of categories: Entertainment, Trends, Sports, and Current Events. They will then write short 60 to 70 character summaries for each (reportedly Line has approval from those outlets), as well as a pictures and a couple of related articles. If you want more details than that, you can tap on the source link. The service will also note the sorts of articles you read, and service you with more like them in the future.
In terms of mobile news alternatives in Japan, I think there are lots of better alternatives out there, such as more personalized services like Gunosy or Cakes[1]. But I think what this does for Line is incrementally them one step closer to being the dominant place where Japanese users live, a smartphone web portal that serves every need.
Readers may recall that Line previously launched a Manga service back in April, its other notable venture into the content space in Japan.
Line has its ‘Hello, Friends in Tokyo’ event coming up August, and if that event proves to be anything like last year, we can expect more fun additions from the company at that time.
For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Line News, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
I use Gunosy regularly, but I should point out I’ve only looked at Cakes a little bit – but it looks very, very sharp. We’re hoping to have a feature on the latter service coming soon. ↩
Tokyo-based startup Monoco announced today it has raised funds from Japan’s second largest telco KDDI and Japanese VC firm Global Brain. The specific amount was not disclosed but it’s thought to be several million US dollars. Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site focused on selling fashion items of a limited quantity selected by curators and buyers worldwide. Since the company’s launch back in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 80,000 users, partnering with more than 900 fashion designers worldwide. As part of its business strategy, the company plans to add more designers to improve the variety of available items, which would likely result in more revenue. They expect to bring on 2,100 designers more by the end of this year. Coinciding with this funding, the startup will establish a navigation page on the web menu of KDDI’s smartphone subscribers, where it will introduce trending items and drive traffic to its e-commerce site. Furthermore it will also set up a physical store in Tokyo’s Omotesando district, in order to promote its brand offline as well. Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape, originally founded back in 2010 as an incubation project at Netprice.com. It had been running an e-commerce…
Tokyo-based startup Monoco announced today it has raised funds from Japan’s second largest telco KDDI and Japanese VC firm Global Brain. The specific amount was not disclosed but it’s thought to be several million US dollars.
Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site focused on selling fashion items of a limited quantity selected by curators and buyers worldwide. Since the company’s launch back in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 80,000 users, partnering with more than 900 fashion designers worldwide.
As part of its business strategy, the company plans to add more designers to improve the variety of available items, which would likely result in more revenue. They expect to bring on 2,100 designers more by the end of this year.
Coinciding with this funding, the startup will establish a navigation page on the web menu of KDDI’s smartphone subscribers, where it will introduce trending items and drive traffic to its e-commerce site. Furthermore it will also set up a physical store in Tokyo’s Omotesando district, in order to promote its brand offline as well.
Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape, originally founded back in 2010 as an incubation project at Netprice.com. It had been running an e-commerce site selling Japanese products to the overseas markets but subsequently changed to its current business back in 2012. Prior to the funding, it received seed investment from CyberAgent, and investment worth 60 million yen ($600,000) from Nippon Venture Capital, United (ngi group at that time), and Innovation Engine in 2011.
Japanese stock photography company Pixta has announced that it will be expanding its services via a new English website, pixtastock.com, to focus on serving the surrounding Asia market. The company claims to be Japan’s largest stock photography site, with over 5 million images to choose from, as well as 120,000 contributors, and 120,000 customers to date too. It’s pricing is relatively affordable, offering photos and illustrations starting at about $5, and video footage starting at about $20. I asked a company representative a little more about this new English service. She explained that while the service is targeting mostly business users, that they are hoping for smaller customers as well, including SMEs and individual creatives or designers. I’m told that the company also intends to work with promising photographers and creators around the Asia region: It is necessary for our business to make strong relationships with contributors, and the mission of our company to give the opportunities to people with talent – no matter where they are – by using the internet. Pixta originally started out way back in 2006 as a creative platform, and has been growing well ever since. Check out the chart below showing Pixta’s increases in…
Japanese stock photography company Pixta has announced that it will be expanding its services via a new English website, pixtastock.com, to focus on serving the surrounding Asia market.
The company claims to be Japan’s largest stock photography site, with over 5 million images to choose from, as well as 120,000 contributors, and 120,000 customers to date too. It’s pricing is relatively affordable, offering photos and illustrations starting at about $5, and video footage starting at about $20.
I asked a company representative a little more about this new English service. She explained that while the service is targeting mostly business users, that they are hoping for smaller customers as well, including SMEs and individual creatives or designers. I’m told that the company also intends to work with promising photographers and creators around the Asia region:
It is necessary for our business to make strong relationships with contributors, and the mission of our company to give the opportunities to people with talent – no matter where they are – by using the internet.
Pixta originally started out way back in 2006 as a creative platform, and has been growing well ever since. Check out the chart below showing Pixta’s increases in items sold/downloaded over the years to get a good idea of the company’s trajectory. It will be interesting to see if this growth can continue as they expand beyond Japan. Their positioning looks strong, since similar services like Getty Images might not feature as much localized photos and video for Asian countries as businesses in the region require. Pixta could fill that void.
Ameba Pigg is a virtual community operated by Japanese tech giant CyberAgent, perhaps most famous for its Ameba Blog platform. The virtual community was launched back in Feburary of 2009, and has over 15 million registered users to date. After creating an avatar on Ameba Pigg, users can play around in the virtual community and chat with friends. This community is especially popular among the younger generation, especially women. According to a study over on Game Business about a year ago, the breakdown of monthly active users was about 35% men and 65% women. Ameba Pigg’s users are so enthusiastic that recently a middle school girl was arrested for stealing virtual currency from friends’ accounts. These currencies are used to purchase items for user’s avatars, which is a major source of income for the company. Ameba Pigg has successfully pulled off what Second Life attempted to do. As a platform with over 15 million users, brands now seek to promote their business on the service, even politicians sometimes as well. Back in May, Japanese convenience store Lawson, launched an O2O advertisement campaign on the social game Pigg World. Lawson opened an official account on the site and delivered coupons that…
Ameba Pigg is a virtual community operated by Japanese tech giant CyberAgent, perhaps most famous for its Ameba Blog platform. The virtual community was launched back in Feburary of 2009, and has over 15 million registered users to date. After creating an avatar on Ameba Pigg, users can play around in the virtual community and chat with friends.
This community is especially popular among the younger generation, especially women. According to a study over on Game Business about a year ago, the breakdown of monthly active users was about 35% men and 65% women. Ameba Pigg’s users are so enthusiastic that recently a middle school girl was arrested for stealing virtual currency from friends’ accounts. These currencies are used to purchase items for user’s avatars, which is a major source of income for the company.
Ameba Pigg has successfully pulled off what Second Life attempted to do. As a platform with over 15 million users, brands now seek to promote their business on the service, even politicians sometimes as well. Back in May, Japanese convenience store Lawson, launched an O2O advertisement campaign on the social game Pigg World. Lawson opened an official account on the site and delivered coupons that could be used at its stores, of which there are over 10,000 in Japan. The first coupon was a 30 yen discount from Lawson’s signiture sweets, Premium Rollcake.
CyberAgent also launched a special website on Ameba for the upper house election which will take place on July 21. Already 120 candidates in the election have opened blogs on Ameba, and over on Ameba Pigg, candidates have created their own avatars, and election patrolled around the virtual city of Shibuya to raise awareness of the election. On July 4th, candidates from different parties even gave speeches in the virtual city of Shibuya.
Ameba Pigg lauched its English version back in March of 2010 as Ameba Pico, and was largely accepted by users in Asian countries. The virtual community gained over three million users in six months, but the service closed down in December of last year.
CyberAgent is now aggressive in moving to mobile. The company now operates over 100 mobile apps in total, and many consumers are aware of it because of its TV commercials running in heavy rotation. It will be interesting to see whether the company will be as successful on mobile as much as they have been on PCs, and whether or not it can build the next Ameba Blog or Pigg in the age of mobile.
For more information on how Ameba Pigg works, check out one user’s video below.
Many of my overseas friends who visit Japan for the first time are fascinated when they see multi-story parking lots. The lack of land and the dense population forces Japan to be creative in how space is used. This is also true of housing and office space. Ofon is a kind of self-assembly furniture from Kokuyo Furniture and design studio Nendo, and is a good example of this sort of idea. The concept of Ofon is to “Fully enjoy work in a limited space.” The furniture comes in different parts, such as desks, boxes, and cabinets. Depending on the size and shape of the open space at an office, people can combine the various parts to make furniture that fits and is also functional. The design is sort of similar to Muji in taste, very simple and very minimal. Another neat point about this sort of ‘joiny’ furniture is that the components can be screwed and unscrewed using a regular 500 yen coin. Breaking down the parts is as easy as pushing a button too. It allows office furniture to be moved around and rearraged to modify the work environment, even on a daily basis if you desire. Ofon comes…
Many of my overseas friends who visit Japan for the first time are fascinated when they see multi-story parking lots. The lack of land and the dense population forces Japan to be creative in how space is used. This is also true of housing and office space. Ofon is a kind of self-assembly furniture from Kokuyo Furniture and design studio Nendo, and is a good example of this sort of idea.
The concept of Ofon is to “Fully enjoy work in a limited space.” The furniture comes in different parts, such as desks, boxes, and cabinets. Depending on the size and shape of the open space at an office, people can combine the various parts to make furniture that fits and is also functional. The design is sort of similar to Muji in taste, very simple and very minimal.
Another neat point about this sort of ‘joiny’ furniture is that the components can be screwed and unscrewed using a regular 500 yen coin. Breaking down the parts is as easy as pushing a button too. It allows office furniture to be moved around and rearraged to modify the work environment, even on a daily basis if you desire.
Ofon comes in a range of colors including woody, plain (white), pop, and bitter (black/grey). They are available for purchase over on the official Ofon website.
See the original story in Japanese. The 3D printing business is pretty hot in Japan right now. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve heard lots of news in this space. Many co-working spaces providing 3D printing facilities were launched around the country, and Japanese movie rental service DMM recently launched an online 3D printing order service in partnership with local companies Nomad and TeamLab. As the market is still in the early stages, we still don’t know who will be the main players in this space. But recently I had have an opportunity to visit a company that has a very strong presence in the Japanese 3D printing industry. They are iJet corporation, based out of Yokohama. The company was founded back in May of 2009. And despite the fact that have yet to really make any marketing efforts, hundreds of notable Japanese companies are now included on its list of customers. I had a chance to hear from the company’s founder and president Masaru Kumehara about how the company plans to change the Japanese market. A small company with big potential If you haven’t yet heard of iJet, it is probably because they are cultivating marketing channels in…
The 3D printing business is pretty hot in Japan right now. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve heard lots of news in this space. Many co-working spaces providing 3D printing facilities were launched around the country, and Japanese movie rental service DMM recently launched an online 3D printing order service in partnership with local companies Nomad and TeamLab.
As the market is still in the early stages, we still don’t know who will be the main players in this space. But recently I had have an opportunity to visit a company that has a very strong presence in the Japanese 3D printing industry. They are iJet corporation, based out of Yokohama. The company was founded back in May of 2009. And despite the fact that have yet to really make any marketing efforts, hundreds of notable Japanese companies are now included on its list of customers.
I had a chance to hear from the company’s founder and president Masaru Kumehara about how the company plans to change the Japanese market.
A small company with big potential
If you haven’t yet heard of iJet, it is probably because they are cultivating marketing channels in partnership with retailing companies rather than actually marketing themselves. For example, 3D printing studios such as Aoyama 3D Salon, Omote 3D Shashin Kan, and Recs 3D in Hong Kong do not have their own 3D printing facility on site. But rather they outsource the printing process to iJet. Tokyo Otaku Mode is also preparing to launch an e-commerce channel pretty soon, where they will sell character figures manufactured by the company. Kumehara adds:
Have you ever watched Intel’s TV commercial? They use the tagline “Intel Inside”. That’s what we’re aiming at. Many makers produce personal computers, and they typically have Intel-made chips under the hood. They don’t brandish the name [overtly] but everyone knows that PC makers cannot produce computers without the chips. We want to be somewhat like Intel in the 3D printing business. ¶
iJet’s president Masaru Kumehara
In order to provide the entire 3D printing process as a service, studios must have three things: a 3D scanner, software for processing scanned data, and a 3D printer. But you will need even more than that. In contrast to 2D printing, you will be required to process scanned data to make it fit a 3D printing output, and you’ll also need some finishing touches afterwards. These processes cannot be automated, but rather it is totally artisanal. At the company, professionals called ‘modelers’ (who typically worked as clay-model sculptors or illustrators) are taking care of this difficult production process.
When I visited the company’s factory, they seemed busy finishing many client orders. The scene looked something like a team of animators working on a film, bringing very realistic sculptures into the world [1].
Will traditional print shops shift to 3D printing?
iJet can receive orders for all 3D printing tasks: scanning, data processing, printing and finishing. They also support the installation and operation of 3D scanners for their partner studios. For customers, when you order 3D printing at a studio, your original sculpture will be scanned at their storefronts, and that scanned 3D data will be transmitted to iJet, who takes care of the data processing, printing, finishing, and even delivery.
For 3D printing manufacturers, if you buy a printing device from major makers in the US (such as 3D systems or Strata) it will cost around 15 million yen ($150,000). But in order to make your business profitable after paying for the printer, you will need to receive many printing orders from customers. So Kumehara has a plan to partner with print shop chains in order to better meet consumer needs.
Print shop chains have been differentiating their businesses by providing in-shop photo-processing machines to serve customers better. But of course, with the rise of digital cameras and more advanced consumer printers, they’ve been forced to completely shift their business model. At these shops, 3D printing services may be provided as an additional service, making it more accessible to the every day consumers.
New opportunities in the entertainment industry
The rise of 3D printing is causing a drastic change in the Japanese manufacturing industry. In conventional manufacturing, mold making typically requires several months and cost a lot. But in some cases, iJet can deliver a 3D printed sculpture in as little as a few weeks after receiving an order.
If you create a human figure modeled from a real man, you can add texture so that it looks just like him. Because of its realistic detail and the short delivery time, the company been receiving non-stop orders from the music and animation industries for 3D printed figures. For the entertainment business, you don’t even need to order a large quantity, so customers can easily create and sell something by starting on a limited testing basis. And then based on the the market response, you can shift to mass-production.
The video below is a TV commercial from a Japanese plastic surgery clinic. At the end, you can see many performers wear masks. These were all made by iJet.
Can 3D printing be one of Japan’s core businesses
As some of our readers may know, the Japan Expo exhibition took place in Paris last week. We’re told that it was a big success, even better than previous events. But it’s a reminder that content development is one of Japan’s strong points. As I watched the folks at the iJet factory finishing their 3D sculptures, it reminded me that this will be another sort of animation industry for the country.
Prior to founding this company, Kumehara ran a digital printing company in Yokohama. But the 2011 earthquake severely impacted his business, eventually leading him to shift to 3D printing. As the time progresses, more players will jump into this space and gradually an ecosystem will form. .
iJet looks poised to lead the 3D printing business in Japan. It will be interesting to see how if their meteoric growth can continue.
The company secured funding from investors back in February, but no details about the amount have been disclosed yet.
For me this was a very impressive moment, and I wish I could share pictures or videos. But since most of the projects were related to popular characters or celebrities, it could result in possible rights issues if I do so. ↩
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based startup 
Yukari Mitsuhashi
iJet can receive orders for all 3D printing tasks: scanning, data processing, printing and finishing. They also support the installation and operation of 3D scanners for their partner studios. For customers, when you order 3D printing at a studio, your original sculpture will be scanned at their storefronts, and that scanned 3D data will be transmitted to iJet, who takes care of the data processing, printing, finishing, and even delivery.
The rise of 3D printing is causing a drastic change in the Japanese manufacturing industry. In conventional manufacturing, mold making typically requires several months and cost a lot. But in some cases, iJet can deliver a 3D printed sculpture in as little as a few weeks after receiving an order.
As some of our readers may know, the 
