Adways Korea, the subsidiary of Tokyo-based Adways Inc, has announced the official launch of its Yoyaku Top 10 service in Korea. It lets users pre-register for mobile game apps, and has been available in Korea in the beta phase since January. For developers, it serves as a medium to reach fans before the launch of an app, or even provide push notifications for new updates or events.
During that three month beta, the service has been used by 150 apps from 50 different developers, with as many as 10,000 pre-registrations coming on a single app. The company claims a 56% conversion rate, which they say is far better than PC-based pre-registration services [1].
Yoyaku Top 10 was initially launched for the Japanese market in January of 2013, and Adways apparently has experienced enough success with it to warrant localization into Korean to explore that market.
After Korea, the company aspires to expand service elsewhere in Asia.
Adways says this figure is 20% for PC services, though we don’t have any verification for this. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup 10sec operates a mobile flea market mobile for the US market. Today the company announced today that it has raised 160 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Japanese internet company CyberAgent (TSE:4751). According to the startup’s CEO Hideyuki Shoda, this follows their previous funding from Tokyo-based Incubated Fund. The app, which will be available on the US App Store from mid-May, lets you to sell items using your Instagram photos. Shoda told us how the app is different from existing flea market apps: When you use conventional flea market apps, you may need to input your price, description, and delivery method for what you sell. But our app allows lets you list your item on our platform in as little as 10 seconds. The platform doesn’t as you to specify a price when you sell an item, but you simply wait until a potential buyers propose one. Users can purchase your item through the app or the website, and payment is collected by 10sec when the deal is made. The seller is subsequently paid via their banking account upon the confirmation that the buyer has received the item. Shoda also elaborated on…
Japanese startup 10sec operates a mobile flea market mobile for the US market. Today the company announced today that it has raised 160 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Japanese internet company CyberAgent (TSE:4751). According to the startup’s CEO Hideyuki Shoda, this follows their previous funding from Tokyo-based Incubated Fund.
The app, which will be available on the US App Store from mid-May, lets you to sell items using your Instagram photos. Shoda told us how the app is different from existing flea market apps:
When you use conventional flea market apps, you may need to input your price, description, and delivery method for what you sell. But our app allows lets you list your item on our platform in as little as 10 seconds.
The platform doesn’t as you to specify a price when you sell an item, but you simply wait until a potential buyers propose one. Users can purchase your item through the app or the website, and payment is collected by 10sec when the deal is made. The seller is subsequently paid via their banking account upon the confirmation that the buyer has received the item.
Shoda also elaborated on the advantage of their Instagram integration:
We have many users who have been buying and selling items on Instagram just by adding a #forsale tag to their item photos. But they need to handle payments or inventory by themselves. Our app lets them eliminate these time-consuming tasks, since we provide payment processing, receipt of orders, and inventory management features.
The team wants to bring in these flea market sellers who are already using Instagram. That’s why they choose the US as their target market where Instagram users account for 35% of the network’s global user base. Shoda hinted at their future plans:
We’re going to make our app available on photo sharing apps other than Instagram. So we expect to build a buy-and-sell platform using various photo apps.
This funding was triggered when they won an award at ‘Startup-ban Ashita Kaigi’, a day-long startup camp program recently held by CyberAgent. The company will set up an office in the US to better serve local users.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Grood, the startup best known for its crowdsourcing platform for voice actors, announced today that it has launched a new platform called Tabikul. This service helps you arrange travel itineraries by capitalizing on crowdsourced information. Based on your request, crowdsourced users living in certain destinations will help you arrange a travel itinerary. You can select your preference for mode of transportation or accommodations from five options, depending on your price requirements. You can receive proposals from crowdsourced users in 72 hours from the submission of your request, and even can ask for minor changes by interacting over the platform. If you like the proposed itinerary, you can order the tickets needed on the website, without having to go to another booking site. When you order, the user who arranged your itinerary can receive 10,000 yen (about $100) as a reward from the platform. At the time of launch, Tabikul is still limited to accepting travel itinerary requests to France, the UK, and Italy. They plan to expand it as they acquire more crowdsourced users from other regions.
Tokyo-based Grood, the startup best known for its crowdsourcing platform for voice actors, announced today that it has launched a new platform called Tabikul. This service helps you arrange travel itineraries by capitalizing on crowdsourced information.
Based on your request, crowdsourced users living in certain destinations will help you arrange a travel itinerary. You can select your preference for mode of transportation or accommodations from five options, depending on your price requirements. You can receive proposals from crowdsourced users in 72 hours from the submission of your request, and even can ask for minor changes by interacting over the platform.
If you like the proposed itinerary, you can order the tickets needed on the website, without having to go to another booking site. When you order, the user who arranged your itinerary can receive 10,000 yen (about $100) as a reward from the platform.
At the time of launch, Tabikul is still limited to accepting travel itinerary requests to France, the UK, and Italy. They plan to expand it as they acquire more crowdsourced users from other regions.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Hatch is developing a hiring platform that uses machine learning and big data solutions. The company announced today that it has raised seed funding of 75 million yen (approximately $750,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Anri. They will use these funds to intensify development and marketing efforts for their hiring support platform, which will be called Talentio. The company was launched last August by Akihito Nihomiya (CEO), Ichiro Sadahira (COO and CFO), and Yoshinobu Kinugasa (CTO). They initially thought they would launch a business in the edutech space by analyzing behavior, but when they found it will take time to make that area monetizable, then shifted their target to exploring opportunities in hiring. They have been developing their platform for almost half an year in stealth mode. Growth hacking for hiring The issues that the company wants to address with the new platform can be summarized in two points: First, the process of managing applicants profiles is still being handled manually at most companies, often with profiles stored in an Excel file. It can be difficult to find out who among your colleagues interviewed an applicant or what kind of jobs the person…
Tokyo-based startup Hatch is developing a hiring platform that uses machine learning and big data solutions. The company announced today that it has raised seed funding of 75 million yen (approximately $750,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Anri. They will use these funds to intensify development and marketing efforts for their hiring support platform, which will be called Talentio.
The company was launched last August by Akihito Nihomiya (CEO), Ichiro Sadahira (COO and CFO), and Yoshinobu Kinugasa (CTO). They initially thought they would launch a business in the edutech space by analyzing behavior, but when they found it will take time to make that area monetizable, then shifted their target to exploring opportunities in hiring. They have been developing their platform for almost half an year in stealth mode.
Growth hacking for hiring
The issues that the company wants to address with the new platform can be summarized in two points:
First, the process of managing applicants profiles is still being handled manually at most companies, often with profiles stored in an Excel file. It can be difficult to find out who among your colleagues interviewed an applicant or what kind of jobs the person has experienced before.
Conversely, job seekers find it difficult to identify what kind of skills are needed or the amount of salary they can receive in a given industry.
We understand the company wants to implement a growth hack concept (often seen in the gaming industry these days) in the hiring and job seeking processes. They are planning to hold a ‘Secret Release Party’ soon, where they will showcase their products to selected potential users, so we encourage you to visit there if you want to check it out.
Companies have many options to streamline the hiring process using executive search provided by big companies and hiring support platforms operated by startups. And recruiting personnel are keen to find promising talent by making the most of such services. We’re told that Hatch doesn’t intend to compete with other operators or platform developers. As far as I can tell, their solution will be able to integrate with third-party hiring platforms, in the same way that many financial aggregation tools scrape updates from multiple online banking services. In this way, the platform lets you see information from multiple sources using a single interface.
While we’ve already seen Silicon Valley-based startup Jobvite in this space, Hatch is exploring global expansion opportunities from Asia, with initial plans to expand the business to Taiwan and Korea.
Kyoto-based mobile game publisher Ponos has announced that its popular tower defense title Battle Cats has surpassed 9 million downloads as of May 3rd. At the same time, the company is announcing that its repertoire of smartphone apps have now seen over 33 million downloads in total. That total surprises me, because while the company has a lot of games, Battle Cats is the only one that has ever really gotten my attention. While it has been a while since we’ve looked in on this title (the English version was retired last year, much to our despair), the most recent million downloads have come in 110 days, quicker than the previous million, which required 137 days. Ponos has recently started airing a series of commercials here in Japan for Battle Cats starring singer Sachiko Kobayashi. They’re pretty strange little promos, which is perhaps fitting, given how strange the game actually is. They ran from April 28th until May 4th, and likely were a big help in giving the game a push in the past few weeks. I’m still a big fan of this game, and if you don’t mind venturing into a Japanese-language title, I encourage you to check it…
Kyoto-based mobile game publisher Ponos has announced that its popular tower defense title Battle Cats has surpassed 9 million downloads as of May 3rd.
At the same time, the company is announcing that its repertoire of smartphone apps have now seen over 33 million downloads in total. That total surprises me, because while the company has a lot of games, Battle Cats is the only one that has ever really gotten my attention.
While it has been a while since we’ve looked in on this title (the English version was retired last year, much to our despair), the most recent million downloads have come in 110 days, quicker than the previous million, which required 137 days.
Ponos has recently started airing a series of commercials here in Japan for Battle Cats starring singer Sachiko Kobayashi. They’re pretty strange little promos, which is perhaps fitting, given how strange the game actually is. They ran from April 28th until May 4th, and likely were a big help in giving the game a push in the past few weeks.
I’m still a big fan of this game, and if you don’t mind venturing into a Japanese-language title, I encourage you to check it out.
Line Corporation’s latest entry in the mobile gaming space is a rehashed version of the jousting game Shake Spears from Russian developer Alawar Entertainment. The original Shake Spears title first hit app stores way back in mid–2011. Line announced this game was coming to its platform last year, and now this past week it has finally gone live on both iOS and Android. Like most of Line’s casual titles, Shake Spears lets you connect with your friends on the popular messaging platform. But here, in what Line calls its first ever real-time battle game, you can joust against your friends if they are online at the same time. You can also play against other players beyond your Line friends, or against the ‘environment’ (ostensibly meaning computer players [1]). There are a number of in-game purchases available too (surprise, surprise!), including upgraded weaponry and equipment, as well as magic that can be used in matches. In order to joust, you need to use one finger/thumb on the right to move your spear up or down, and likewise you need you use a finger/thumb on the left to defend with your shield. The action turns to a slow motion view as you…
Line Corporation’s latest entry in the mobile gaming space is a rehashed version of the jousting game Shake Spears from Russian developer Alawar Entertainment. The original Shake Spears title first hit app stores way back in mid–2011. Line announced this game was coming to its platform last year, and now this past week it has finally gone live on both iOS and Android.
Like most of Line’s casual titles, Shake Spears lets you connect with your friends on the popular messaging platform. But here, in what Line calls its first ever real-time battle game, you can joust against your friends if they are online at the same time. You can also play against other players beyond your Line friends, or against the ‘environment’ (ostensibly meaning computer players [1]). There are a number of in-game purchases available too (surprise, surprise!), including upgraded weaponry and equipment, as well as magic that can be used in matches.
In order to joust, you need to use one finger/thumb on the right to move your spear up or down, and likewise you need you use a finger/thumb on the left to defend with your shield. The action turns to a slow motion view as you approach the opposing knight, and you can even feint a low hit and then hit high above your opponent’s shield. Check out our video demo above for a quick walkthough of how jousting looks.
Line’s chief strategy and marketing officer Jun Masuda said in his company’s announcement that he hopes the game will “appeal to and attract both casual and core gamers alike.”
Personally I think it’s optimistic to think that a game like this will attract anything other than casual gamers. But Alawar will definitely benefit from the reach of the Line platform, which now extends to 420 million users globally.
Overall I think this is a fun game that would appeal to Western/European users of Line, and maybe it might be an asset for the company if and when it can win some popularity in those markets [2]. As for Line’s core markets here in the Asia region, I’d be surprised if any of them are receptive to Shake Spears.
It’s a little tricky to tell whether you’re playing against someone in real time or not. I took on a friend in duel mode, but I’m not certain whether or not we were logged in at once. ↩
Line has seen some popularity in Spain, but not that much elsewhere in Europe. ↩