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Japanese skills marketplace Coconala fundraises $1.5 million

Junya Mori 2013.09.04

See the original story in Japanese Coconala is a website where you can buy and sell knowledge, skills and, experience from users who are willing to teach. Tokyo-based Welself, the startup behind the service, announced today that it has fundraised 150 million yen ($1.5 million) from Nissay Capital, Opt, Adways, and Tetsuro Yoshimatsu, the CEO of Japanese cosmetic site iStyle. Coconala was originally launched back in July of 2012. Users don’t need to pay any sign-up or monthly fee, but they do need to pay a 500 yen ($5) commission for a purchase. To date the startup has acquired 63,000 users, 10,400 knowledge ‘items’ for sale (i.e. their expertise or skills), and it has transacted more than 43,000 deals using the marketplace. The startup’s CEO Akiyuki Minami has an interesting background. He began his career at Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, and subsequently conducted five investment projects at an M&A firm. In 2009, he graduated from the business school at Oxford University and then launched his own startup. He has also been involved in some NPOs. Many people want to help others, and Coconala wants to help them do so in their spare time. This community-building concept is the main idea that…

See the original story in Japanese

Coconala is a website where you can buy and sell knowledge, skills and, experience from users who are willing to teach. Tokyo-based Welself, the startup behind the service, announced today that it has fundraised 150 million yen ($1.5 million) from Nissay Capital, Opt, Adways, and Tetsuro Yoshimatsu, the CEO of Japanese cosmetic site iStyle.

Coconala was originally launched back in July of 2012. Users don’t need to pay any sign-up or monthly fee, but they do need to pay a 500 yen ($5) commission for a purchase. To date the startup has acquired 63,000 users, 10,400 knowledge ‘items’ for sale (i.e. their expertise or skills), and it has transacted more than 43,000 deals using the marketplace.

The startup’s CEO Akiyuki Minami has an interesting background. He began his career at Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, and subsequently conducted five investment projects at an M&A firm. In 2009, he graduated from the business school at Oxford University and then launched his own startup. He has also been involved in some NPOs.

Many people want to help others, and Coconala wants to help them do so in their spare time.

This community-building concept is the main idea that the startup aspires to project. Otherwise users would likely use the platform just for making money, and items would be sold for a conventional market price – thus making them far less appealing and affordable. The company branded itself to avoid that scenario, building a platform that provides high quality services by implementing a flat-rate price system.

Sellers recognize that they are helping users who pay to learn their skills or expertise. And for buyers, they can get more benefits than they’ve paid for. These surprises on both ends is what the startup really wants to provide.

Most startups usually contemplate how they can maximize their value and growth, and Welself is no exception. Through one year of operation, the startup found that there was value enough for users, and they could foresee the potential of further growth. This naturally led them towards this most recent fundraising.

With these new funds, the startup will bolster its engineering team. They will also add a new feature that allows high-profile users to set an optional price for their sale items.

Coconala will also launch apps for a few different platforms, and that will allow users to consult sellers over the phone.

It will be interesting to see how the company will evolve in this unexplored business field, so stay tuned!

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Top 7: In Japan, niche photo sites celebrate your favorite girls

SCORE 2,920

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.09.03

The number and variety of websites on the net are practically endless. Looking at the top trafficked sites for Japan, we see internet giants like Yahoo, Google, Youtube, Amazon, and Rakuten. But the beauty of the internet is that there is always room for more, and so even niche websites can find a strong following. I recently came across a fun list of such websites, a collection of Japanese photo sites dedicated to different kinds of girls. Here are some of the more notable websites we found in the list, in no particular order. 1. TwinTail The name of this website says it all. Its concept is to make Japanese women more beautiful, more ‘energetic’, and more fun by the power of twintails, or pig-tails. Twintails was a bit of a trend for fashionable young girls, particularly those that hang out in the famous Harajuku district. Japanese anime likely heavily impacts this trend, as famous characters like Sailor Moon and Hatsune-Miku have their hair up in twintails. Of course, if pig-tails aren’t your thing, there is a site for ponytails too. 2. Megane Joshi ‘Megane Joshi’ means ‘girls with glasses’ in Japanese. This website exists as an inbound-marketing tool for…

The number and variety of websites on the net are practically endless. Looking at the top trafficked sites for Japan, we see internet giants like Yahoo, Google, Youtube, Amazon, and Rakuten. But the beauty of the internet is that there is always room for more, and so even niche websites can find a strong following.

I recently came across a fun list of such websites, a collection of Japanese photo sites dedicated to different kinds of girls. Here are some of the more notable websites we found in the list, in no particular order.

1. TwinTail

The name of this website says it all. Its concept is to make Japanese women more beautiful, more ‘energetic’, and more fun by the power of twintails, or pig-tails. Twintails was a bit of a trend for fashionable young girls, particularly those that hang out in the famous Harajuku district. Japanese anime likely heavily impacts this trend, as famous characters like Sailor Moon and Hatsune-Miku have their hair up in twintails. Of course, if pig-tails aren’t your thing, there is a site for ponytails too.

2. Megane Joshi

‘Megane Joshi’ means ‘girls with glasses’ in Japanese. This website exists as an inbound-marketing tool for glasses manufacturer Alook. Of course, all of the glasses that the models are wearing can be purchased at the store, and there is event-related content that lets you to find glasses to match your fashion. For every Megane Joshi, there is a video, here’s one example:

3. Icecco

Icecco is a website that showcases photos of girls eating popsicles. The site is pretty simple, consisting of photos of the girls and their personal profiles. In the profile section the girls share their top three favorite kinds of ice cream. The photos are taken by various photographers. The picture below is Chihiro Fujiwara, and her favorite ice creams are Giant Cone, Yukimi Daifuku, and Ice-no-mi.

4. Hitomebore

Hitomebore is filled with photos of girls with an eye-patch. Fundamentally, the word ‘hitomebore’ means love at first sight in Japanese. But ‘Hitomi’ also means eyes, and ‘hito’ can mean one, making the website title a playful label for girls wearing eye-patch. Seiichi Sakakibara is the photographer behind these pictures, who believes that the covered eye can stir the imagination.

5. Necogirl

Necogirl’s tagline says, ‘Are you a cat person or a dog person? We’re cat people.’ On Necogirl, you can find photos of girls wearing cat-ear headsets, or girls who have their hair up the similar way. The site claims that this is an actual fashion style and introduces many ways to add Neco (or cat) taste into your fashion.

6. Hanagirl

Girls are beautiful and so are flowers. Hanagirl puts these two beautiful things together and introduces them as a photo gallery. Each girl can be viewed in photos as well as in a video. The girl below is Yui Matsumoto, and you can check out her video here.

7. Ringo-a-me

‘Ringo-a-me’ means “candy apple” in Japanese. The purpose of the website remains mysterious, but the theme is girls and candy apples. The photos are very high in quality and there are a bunch of photos where girls are dressed in yukata, a casual summer kimono commonly worn in summer festivals. And at street stalls for such events, candy apples are a common treat.

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Kaori-san: A new virtual assistant for busy people in Japan

Rick Martin 2013.09.03

The phenomenon of virtual assistants is one of the more fascinating developments of the internet age, in a world made flat by rapid communication developments. Such assistants, often working from some remote location, can be an invaluable asset to busy people. Japan is known for having an abundance of busy people, and one Tokyo startup is hoping that this translates into a direct need for virtual assistants in the country. Kaori-san is web-based virtual assistant that allows you to submit a certain amount of requests per month and get results back quickly. It’s amazingly expensive to try and hire part time staff in Japan, the fees are insane. This initiative is led by Ejovi Nuwere, who with a very small team of three (including himself) is running this new virtual service. It enlists the help of about a dozen bilingual, remote assistants in Tokyo and Osaka, typically former or part-time office ladies. I submitted a couple of Kaori-san requests using the free trial, and I was pretty happy with the results [1]. Given that the cheapest plan is 2,980 yen per month (about $30), one request works out to be about $6 – which I think is a pretty fair…

The phenomenon of virtual assistants is one of the more fascinating developments of the internet age, in a world made flat by rapid communication developments. Such assistants, often working from some remote location, can be an invaluable asset to busy people. Japan is known for having an abundance of busy people, and one Tokyo startup is hoping that this translates into a direct need for virtual assistants in the country. Kaori-san is web-based virtual assistant that allows you to submit a certain amount of requests per month and get results back quickly.

It’s amazingly expensive to try and hire part time staff in Japan, the fees are insane.

This initiative is led by Ejovi Nuwere, who with a very small team of three (including himself) is running this new virtual service. It enlists the help of about a dozen bilingual, remote assistants in Tokyo and Osaka, typically former or part-time office ladies.

I submitted a couple of Kaori-san requests using the free trial, and I was pretty happy with the results [1]. Given that the cheapest plan is 2,980 yen per month (about $30), one request works out to be about $6 – which I think is a pretty fair price for the work that was done. Other examples of Kaori-san requests include things like finding and booking a car to take you to the airport, or tracking down a photo studio under a given budget [2].

So who uses Kaori-san? While Ejovi couldn’t disclose any user numbers, he did say that it’s still under 500. But they do see a big opportunity in serving both small businesses and busy executives:

The small business market in Japan is one of the largest in the world. There is big market opportunity within the sub five-person startup. It’s a market totally ignored by large recruiting firms, but it’s our focus. And we really understand that market because we are that market! It’s amazingly expensive to try and hire part time staff in Japan, the fees are insane. Its almost like recruiting firms don’t want to work with startups.

When I tried the service, the interface looked very much like a tech support system, where you log a support ticket and it remains open until you get an answer. And just as with those systems, you can then provide feedback, or close the ticket if you are satisfied.

It’s all very, very simple.

So I was curious to read the claim on the Kaori-san website that “Using technology
we can provide a personalized experience for a reasonable price.”

But where is this technology? I mean, couldn’t this sort of simple ticketing be conducted with even a web form, a spreadsheet, and a group of competent Googlers? I asked Ejovi about this, and he elaborated about what happens behind the scenes:

From a technology standpoint as we have more customers we gradually build a database of common internal request, vendors related to specific request types, vendor reviews and communication tools that make our responses faster and more accurate with time. We also keep logs on customer preferences, so even with 100 assistants the experience for the customer will always feel personal. And the more the customer uses the service, the more personal it feels.

He also points out that Kaori-san features integration with services like Evernote and Gengo, and there is also a payments system that lets them pay third-party vendors on behalf of users. And there are even more integrations to come down the road.

If we can’t build something people are willing to pay for on day one, it’s not interesting to me

Currently Ejovi keeps office space at Venture Generation, noting he sold a small amount of equity to J-Seed and David Dacus as angels, since he valued their advice and wanted them involved. But he notes that he believes strongly in organic growth, saying “If we can’t build something people are willing to pay for on day one, it’s not interesting to me”. In the first three to six months, he adds, the only thing that is important is getting – and keeping – customers.

I’m told that in the future, they plan to increase the services they offer for startups and busy executives, with some new features on the way in the next three months. While he couldn’t elaborate too much on this, Ejovi noted that “assistants are only the beginning.”

As it exists right now, Kaori-san is an interesting offering. It may not be entirely obvious to some potential users how they might take advantage of the service, but if you are a busy person being slowed down by some tedious tasks, I encourage you to give it a try and see if it’s a good fit for you.

Using Kaori-san’s free trial, I made one request for a list of Japanese edu-tech companies and their URLs. This is actually something we’ve been looking into ourselves. The results were pretty quick, and turned up a few companies that we were not aware of. ↩
Currently Kaori-san is available with three monthly pricing plans: 2,980 yen for 5 requests, 8,980 yen for 15 requests, and 14,980 yen for 25 requests. ↩

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DrawChat lets you send hand-drawn pictures over Facebook Messenger

Masaru Ikeda 2013.09.03

See the original story in Japanese. Prime Again is a Tokyo-based startup known for having developed the photo decoration app DecoAlbum. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. Recently the company unveiled a new app called DrawChat, allowing users to exchange messages using drawings and stickers. The app is available for both iOS and Android in Japanese, Thai, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and English. It costs 250 yen (or $2.99), but is currently free until September 9th as part of a limited time offer. While Line, Kakao Talk, and other messaging apps are competing fiercely in the Asia region, Facebook messaging is still somewhat inadequate when it comes to expressing yourself as you might with some mobile chat apps. While Facebook has 340 million monthly active users in the region, so companies cannot help but using for their user acquisition efforts. Send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends The Draw Chat app makes use of Facebook’s Chat API. When you use the app, it’s easy to forget that it’s even running on the Facebook platform. You can send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends, regardless of whether or not they have the app…

See the original story in Japanese.

Prime Again is a Tokyo-based startup known for having developed the photo decoration app DecoAlbum. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. Recently the company unveiled a new app called DrawChat, allowing users to exchange messages using drawings and stickers. The app is available for both iOS and Android in Japanese, Thai, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and English. It costs 250 yen (or $2.99), but is currently free until September 9th as part of a limited time offer.

While Line, Kakao Talk, and other messaging apps are competing fiercely in the Asia region, Facebook messaging is still somewhat inadequate when it comes to expressing yourself as you might with some mobile chat apps. While Facebook has 340 million monthly active users in the region, so companies cannot help but using for their user acquisition efforts.

Send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends

The Draw Chat app makes use of Facebook’s Chat API. When you use the app, it’s easy to forget that it’s even running on the Facebook platform.

You can send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends, regardless of whether or not they have the app themselves. The company hopes people will use DecoAlbum to keep track of memories with friends, and that they will use DrawChat for their instant messaging. Among Facebook’s many APIs, there are very few apps using Facebook’s Chat API. The company aspires to dominate this niche by releasing more apps using the API.

Prime Again was chosen to be included in the first batch of startups at Docomo Innovation Village. The incubator plans to hold a Demo Day event on September 26th, where startups will unveil what they’ve been working on during the last six months.

The incubator started accepting applications for the second batch of the program yesterday. For startups that want to follow the example of PrimeAgain, now is a good time to apply.

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Puzzle Trooper: Making the puzzle/RPG accessible to the West

Rick Martin 2013.09.02

Last week game developers Kabam and Gumi launched their Puzzle Trooper game for a number of markets worldwide, on iOS and Android. The game is clearly very much influenced by the wildly successful Puzzle & Dragons, but it takes advantages of one key area where P&D could have done better: localization. For Western users who play Puzzle & Dragons, including myself, it may take a while to grasp many of the game’s core concepts. I think that in the English version of the game, some things (like combo multipliers, orb manipulation, and knowing which elements are most effective against other elements) are not adequately explained to beginners. Check out my video below for a more visual comparison. This is the best game ever from the Southeast Asia region Developed by Gumi’s Singapore team, I think that Puzzle Trooper is very deliberately trying to do what Puzzle & Dragons overlooked in its localization, presenting that proven puzzle-RPG game model to global audiences in a manner which they can understand [1]. There are countless similarities with P&D, but the characters are completely different (and very much not in a Japanese style), presented as army troops that can be collected, enhanced, and evolved….

Last week game developers Kabam and Gumi launched their Puzzle Trooper game for a number of markets worldwide, on iOS and Android. The game is clearly very much influenced by the wildly successful Puzzle & Dragons, but it takes advantages of one key area where P&D could have done better: localization.

For Western users who play Puzzle & Dragons, including myself, it may take a while to grasp many of the game’s core concepts. I think that in the English version of the game, some things (like combo multipliers, orb manipulation, and knowing which elements are most effective against other elements) are not adequately explained to beginners. Check out my video below for a more visual comparison.

This is the best game ever from the Southeast Asia region

Developed by Gumi’s Singapore team, I think that Puzzle Trooper is very deliberately trying to do what Puzzle & Dragons overlooked in its localization, presenting that proven puzzle-RPG game model to global audiences in a manner which they can understand [1].

There are countless similarities with P&D, but the characters are completely different (and very much not in a Japanese style), presented as army troops that can be collected, enhanced, and evolved. I’ve been playing the game for a few days, and so far I really like it a lot. There is an interesting player-vs-player option where you can game with friends over Bluetooth, which looks fun. And the in-game text is pretty humorous, as are the fun character names.

So far the game has been made available to markets outside Japan, and it is currently number one in the role-playing category in Thailand, Malaysia, Spain, Russia, Brunei, and the Dominican Republic. I look forward to seeing how far this game can go now that Kabam is on board with Gumi. The company’s CEO Hironao Kunimitsu is pretty enthusiastic about the title, telling me that his Singapore team did a great job, adding “This is the best game ever from the Southeast Asia region.”

If you’d like to give it a try, you can get it for free over on the App Store.

It should be noted that Puzzle Trooper has not launched in the Japanese market. So if anyone is wondering why GungHo is (apparently) not upset about a game that borrows so heavily from its hit game Puzzle & Dragons, perhaps that’s one of the main reasons. In any case, as much as I like Puzzle & Dragons, I think it’s good that Gumi can build a game like this one. ↩

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Megaman creator turns to Kickstarter to crowdsource new project

Rick Martin 2013.09.02

Megaman was one of my favorite games growing up. The iconic side scroller from Capcom is one of the greatest games ever made. The game’s creator, Keiji Inafune, broke away from Capcom back in 2010 to start over with his own studio called Comcept. And now that team is using Kickstarter to get a new game off the ground. It’s called Mighty No. 9, and if you liked Megaman, you’ll probably be excited about this. Check out Keiji’s introduction to the game in the video above. The Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter project just launched on Saturday, and is already near its fundraising goal [1]. And while the initial target of $900,000 will go towards getting the game made for Steam on PC, other ‘stretch goals’ (as you can see below) include funding Mac and Linux versions, as well as versions for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. Readers will no doubt notice that there is no mention of a version for mobile phones, but I hope that this falls within one of the two ‘? ? ?’ stretch goals (again, see below). The estimated release date is spring of 2015, so this is not going to be a very rapid…

Megaman was one of my favorite games growing up. The iconic side scroller from Capcom is one of the greatest games ever made. The game’s creator, Keiji Inafune, broke away from Capcom back in 2010 to start over with his own studio called Comcept. And now that team is using Kickstarter to get a new game off the ground. It’s called Mighty No. 9, and if you liked Megaman, you’ll probably be excited about this. Check out Keiji’s introduction to the game in the video above.

The Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter project just launched on Saturday, and is already near its fundraising goal [1]. And while the initial target of $900,000 will go towards getting the game made for Steam on PC, other ‘stretch goals’ (as you can see below) include funding Mac and Linux versions, as well as versions for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. Readers will no doubt notice that there is no mention of a version for mobile phones, but I hope that this falls within one of the two ‘? ? ?’ stretch goals (again, see below).

The estimated release date is spring of 2015, so this is not going to be a very rapid development process. But obviously gaming fans in the US are enthused about the concept. And supporters of the initiative can look forward to some really fun rewards too, including beta access (for a $99 contribution), your voice or face in the game ($1000 and $2500 respectively), or even dinner with Keiji Inafune.

It’s interesting to see yet another Japan-based initiative turn to Kickstarter to get off the ground [2]. We wish them luck!

As I write this, the project is nearing $700,000. ↩
They’ve enlisted the assistance of 8–4 for localization, PR, and translation, and it looks like their efforts with the Kickstarter page has worked out very well! ↩

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Japanese startup qualifies for global competition with real life analytics for retail stores

Masaru Ikeda 2013.09.01

SeedStars World is an initiative touring 20 cities worldwide to discover high profile startups. Here in Japan, a local preliminary competition event took place on Friday at Samurai Startup Island, an incubation office located on Tokyo’s bayfront. More than a dozen of startups from Japan and the rest of the world gave pitches in an effort to qualify for the final global competition next February in Lausanne, Switzerland. Here is a quick rundown of the three teams selected from the bunch. 1st place: Locarise Locarise is an analytics solution for retail stores. By placing small sensors inside and around your store, the system can collect metrics such as how many people passed in front of the store and how many customers you have served. The system’s web-based dashboard shows you these metrics, as well as other things like visit duration, and retention rate. For a business owner monitoring many store locations, you can easily stay up to date on real-time target rates for KPIs at many stores in a single interface. 2nd place: Eigooo Eigooo is a service that lets users learn English by chatting with a native speaker using mobile message apps such as Line. The service was launched…

SeedStars World is an initiative touring 20 cities worldwide to discover high profile startups. Here in Japan, a local preliminary competition event took place on Friday at Samurai Startup Island, an incubation office located on Tokyo’s bayfront.

More than a dozen of startups from Japan and the rest of the world gave pitches in an effort to qualify for the final global competition next February in Lausanne, Switzerland. Here is a quick rundown of the three teams selected from the bunch.

1st place: Locarise

Locarise is an analytics solution for retail stores. By placing small sensors inside and around your store, the system can collect metrics such as how many people passed in front of the store and how many customers you have served. The system’s web-based dashboard shows you these metrics, as well as other things like visit duration, and retention rate. For a business owner monitoring many store locations, you can easily stay up to date on real-time target rates for KPIs at many stores in a single interface.

2nd place: Eigooo

Eigooo is a service that lets users learn English by chatting with a native speaker using mobile message apps such as Line. The service was launched by Peter Rothenberg, who previously worked in Japan’s public schools as an English conversation teacher. Through his own experience of exchanging messages on mobile during his commutes, he was convinced that messaging using mobile apps is a good way to master foreign languages.

3rd place: Infogra.me

Infogra.me is a sort of slideshare for infographics. You can upload your infographic and share it with many users for free, or even ask the company to create an infographic from your own data. The service is available in six languages, both on the web or with its iOS app.

Their offering is comparable to Piktochart from Malaysia.

In my view, this world championship tour is well-organized, supported by global entrepreneur network SandBox. However, it’s probably too early to see how much impact the event make can have on the global startup community, since it’s still just the first batch.

On the event website, you can browse the many startups that have been selected in other participating cities. After Tokyo, the next local event will take place next Friday in Sydney, Australia.

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Japan’s CocoPPa adopts Metaps’ ‘Exchanger’ to help profitability and advertising

Junya Mori 2013.09.01

Based on our original article in Japanese United Inc. has announced that it will implement Metaps’ Exchanger, a network for user traffic exchange, into its popular smartphone homescreen decoration app CocoPPa. The newly released Exchanger service enables developers to optimize their Android app icons for best performance. With the implementation of Exchanger, CocoPPa is looking to bolster its profitability and advertising. Recently provided by Metaps as a beta release, Exchanger is a developer platform for monetizing Android apps. In line with the official release of Exchanger, it has been designated for introduction into CocoPPa. Metaps, as many of our readers may know, is a subsidiary of United, with investment from Venture United Inc. Apps which use Exchanger can have full screen advertisements displayed at any time. Icons are displayed as advertisements in other apps where Exchanger has also been introduced. By transferring customers reciprocally between apps in this manner, the platform allows developers to acquire users at no cost. Furthermore, when a user downloads a new app via a displayed Exchanger advertisement, the developer receives advertising revenue based on the number of downloads. To learn more about the platform, Metaps has recently published some informative slides which you can check…

Based on our original article in Japanese

United Inc. has announced that it will implement Metaps’ Exchanger, a network for user traffic exchange, into its popular smartphone homescreen decoration app CocoPPa.

The newly released Exchanger service enables developers to optimize their Android app icons for best performance. With the implementation of Exchanger, CocoPPa is looking to bolster its profitability and advertising.

Recently provided by Metaps as a beta release, Exchanger is a developer platform for monetizing Android apps. In line with the official release of Exchanger, it has been designated for introduction into CocoPPa. Metaps, as many of our readers may know, is a subsidiary of United, with investment from Venture United Inc.

Apps which use Exchanger can have full screen advertisements displayed at any time. Icons are displayed as advertisements in other apps where Exchanger has also been introduced. By transferring customers reciprocally between apps in this manner, the platform allows developers to acquire users at no cost.

Furthermore, when a user downloads a new app via a displayed Exchanger advertisement, the developer receives advertising revenue based on the number of downloads. To learn more about the platform, Metaps has recently published some informative slides which you can check out below.

On a related note, CocoPPa also recently announced that it would collaborate with Chinese search giant Baidu on the Japanese input method editor app, Simeji for Android.

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In Japan, dumbass kids go viral shooting dumbass photos

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.08.30

In Japan, the word ‘Enjo” refers to when something goes viral on social networks for all the wrong reasons. Twitter is the most common environment for such unfortunate incidents, and recently, there has been an unusual series of prank photos posted by various part-time restaurant employees. Sometimes the people responsible are customers as well, but in almost every case the results are pretty embarrassing. Below you can see some examples of some prank photos that an assortment of foolish kids have posted on Twitter. In many cases, the people behind these incidents are teenagers. News of such cases has appeared on TV, which appears to be spawning more and more dumbass kids to imitate the behavior. In an extreme case, one steakhouse was forced to shut down after waves of complaints were made to the restaurant. In Japan, these sorts of pranks also contribute to an unfounded fear of social networks as well. Now there are even websites and Twitter accounts that keeps people informed about these incidents. And as you might expect, Naver Matome, has a round-up of these viral photos too. These pranks on social networks are becoming more and more of a problem, with no sign of…

In Japan, the word ‘Enjo” refers to when something goes viral on social networks for all the wrong reasons. Twitter is the most common environment for such unfortunate incidents, and recently, there has been an unusual series of prank photos posted by various part-time restaurant employees. Sometimes the people responsible are customers as well, but in almost every case the results are pretty embarrassing. Below you can see some examples of some prank photos that an assortment of foolish kids have posted on Twitter.

In many cases, the people behind these incidents are teenagers. News of such cases has appeared on TV, which appears to be spawning more and more dumbass kids to imitate the behavior. In an extreme case, one steakhouse was forced to shut down after waves of complaints were made to the restaurant. In Japan, these sorts of pranks also contribute to an unfounded fear of social networks as well.

Now there are even websites and Twitter accounts that keeps people informed about these incidents. And as you might expect, Naver Matome, has a round-up of these viral photos too. These pranks on social networks are becoming more and more of a problem, with no sign of ending. Even planking is better than this.

A customer lies on ice cream. (photo via. Hamsoku)

Burger King employee dives into leftover hamburger buns. (photo via m9l)

Pizza Hut employee using pizza dough as a facial mask. (photo via. 2ch)

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Anime illustration crowdsourcing platform raises $1.3M

Takeshi Hirano 2013.08.30

See the original story in Japanese. Crowdsoucing platforms can be divided into two categories: 1) general purpose and 2) industry-focused. The latter is very much focused on specific business fields such as translation or design, and such crowdsourcing platforms are on the rise. MugenUp is a Tokyo-based startup that provides a crowdsourcing platform for animated content and illustrations. The company just announced that it has raised series B funding worth 130 million yen (or approximately $1.3 million) from Industrial Growth Platform and SMBC Venture Capital. MugenUp was launched back in June of 2011 as a social games developer, but that plan didn’t quite work out. So last year they shifted to work on an animation-focused platform, since they thought they would be able to take advantage of the experiences from their past projects. Readers may recall when we spoke with the startup’s CEO Ryota Ichioka back in May, he told us about how they serve as an illustration solution to many game companies who might have just a few full-time illustrators. We plan to grow into a 100-person team in a year For crowdsourcing platform operators, if you focus on a specific business sector, the fortunes of your business will…

See the original story in Japanese.

Crowdsoucing platforms can be divided into two categories: 1) general purpose and 2) industry-focused. The latter is very much focused on specific business fields such as translation or design, and such crowdsourcing platforms are on the rise.

MugenUp is a Tokyo-based startup that provides a crowdsourcing platform for animated content and illustrations. The company just announced that it has raised series B funding worth 130 million yen (or approximately $1.3 million) from Industrial Growth Platform and SMBC Venture Capital.

MugenUp was launched back in June of 2011 as a social games developer, but that plan didn’t quite work out. So last year they shifted to work on an animation-focused platform, since they thought they would be able to take advantage of the experiences from their past projects. Readers may recall when we spoke with the startup’s CEO Ryota Ichioka back in May, he told us about how they serve as an illustration solution to many game companies who might have just a few full-time illustrators.

We plan to grow into a 100-person team in a year

For crowdsourcing platform operators, if you focus on a specific business sector, the fortunes of your business will obviously be very directly dependent on trends in that sector. The rise of the Japanese social gaming industry has helped the startup’s business grow rapidly, enabling them to raise a 100 million yen ($1 million) in funding from Japanese VC Nissay Capital back in September of 2012.

MugenUp functions as an intermediary between customers and clients, helping them find appropriate matches. A key aspect of this process is a chat system called Mugen Work Station. This allows their directors to communicate with crowdsourced workers, monitor the production process, and give workers revision requests if needed.

We heard more from CEO Ichioka about how business is going these days.

In terms of the orders we’re receiving, projects related to mobile games are continuously growing. But I think the content of games on each gaming platform is changing. For example, illustration work for card battle games is still in a high demand in browser-based gaming apps, but native app developers typically ask us to help them develop animated 3D/2D content developed with Unity.

IMGP79521 — MugenUp directors advice crowdsourced workers using the chat system.

Ichioka shared a little more about their hiring plan:

Our total number of registered crowdsourced workers will hit 10,000 very shortly. In the office, we have 60 full-time and part-time workers. With these funds, we will add people with skills to handling 3D animated content, and we plan to grow into a 100-person team in a year.

In addition, our chat system has a handy translation feature that helps our directors communicate with foreign crowdsourced workers in English and Chinese.

According to Mr. Ichioka, the chat system also keeps clients updated about how their outsourced projects are going, and an upcoming version will allow them to check how workers are creating character designs at any time.

The startup is receiving many orders for 3D content. Ichioka explained the startup’s future exists in the accumulation of these content data.

We’ve been receiving orders for 3D models of real products. They are typically orders to optimize data for actual production rather than just digital content. So we are aiming to move into a market that will replace the metal mold business.

When we look at the digital fabrication industry, 2D or 3D design data can be alternatives to metal molds. The point is not about creating products featuring popular characters, but the accumulation of design data allows the startup to analyze and predict what kind of characters or shapes will be popular in different markets.

While most of their future plans were not disclosed, they revealed that the accumulated design data includes many useful engineering tips, such as how much shrinkage you need to plan for when creating a vinyl chloride creation with digital 3D data.

We’re aiming at a comprehensive platform for design data, making the most of our experiences through our crowdsourcing platform business. We’re trying to adopt our kind of service operations and database design to genres such as toys or figure sculptures.

For anime studios out there, you will be able to easily digitize your intellectual property (such as anime characters), letting you easily partner with toy makers and co-develop derivative works.

The startup is already profitable and planning to get listed on a stock exchange in a few years. It is interesting to see how crowdsourcing work styles will be adopted here in Japan and around the world.

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