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In Japan, sticky notes have gone high tech

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I primarily use Google Calendar for my daily planning and task management, but when it comes to weekly or monthly plans, I still use a regular paper planner. But I recently came across a fun product called Picotto Fusen, comprised of a small sticky with a QR code printed on it. The code lets you conveniently attach or embed photos from your mobile phone to that particular sticky. Just add the sticky somewhere in your notebook. Then, by using the dedicated smartphone app (available for both iOS and Android) to read the QR code printed on the sticky, you can choose photos from your photo library to associate with it. In fact, the sticky can record as many photos as you want, giving you instant access to those photos. In work meetings with white boards, I usually take photos of what has been written on the board for later reference. But finding these photos in a cluttered photo library can be very time consuming. But now I can add a sticky in my planner to find the information I need. Picotto Fusen was a standout product at ISOT, a large annual stationary products fair held in Japan. It is available…

Picotto-Fusen

I primarily use Google Calendar for my daily planning and task management, but when it comes to weekly or monthly plans, I still use a regular paper planner. But I recently came across a fun product called Picotto Fusen, comprised of a small sticky with a QR code printed on it. The code lets you conveniently attach or embed photos from your mobile phone to that particular sticky.

Just add the sticky somewhere in your notebook. Then, by using the dedicated smartphone app (available for both iOS and Android) to read the QR code printed on the sticky, you can choose photos from your photo library to associate with it. In fact, the sticky can record as many photos as you want, giving you instant access to those photos.

In work meetings with white boards, I usually take photos of what has been written on the board for later reference. But finding these photos in a cluttered photo library can be very time consuming. But now I can add a sticky in my planner to find the information I need.

Picotto-Fusen-stickies

Picotto Fusen was a standout product at ISOT, a large annual stationary products fair held in Japan. It is available in three different color variations (classic pink, chocolate beige, and charcoal grey) and comes with 24 stickies. The product can be purchased for 420 yen (or about $4.25) over on the company’s online shop or on Amazon.

Homescreen decoration app CocoPPa partners with Chinese search giant Baidu

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based United, the company behind smartphone homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced yesterday that it has partnered with Chinese search giant Baidu. The two companies will join forces to intensify marketing the CocoPPa app in Japan and Mainland China. To date the application has over 12 million downloads worldwide, with 83% of its entire user base spread across 150 countries outside Japan, mainly the US, Europe and South East Asian regions. As a part of the partnership with Baidu, CocoPPa will provide a variety of user-generated keypad background designs for Simeji, Baidu’s Japanese input method editor for Android platform which has about 6 million downloads to date. While CocoPPa has a strong following in the US (42% of its entire user base is there), just 2% of its users come from Mainland China. The Japanese company plans to introduce a simplified Chinese version of CocoPPa soon, helping its user acquisition efforts through the partnership with Baidu. Some of our readers may recall that Baidu recently partnered with Booklap, a Japanese startup providing a consumer book discovery service. The Chinese company has been gathering content in an effort to establish a solid presence in the Japanese…

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A screenshot of Simeji using a background design provided by CocoPPa

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based United, the company behind smartphone homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced yesterday that it has partnered with Chinese search giant Baidu. The two companies will join forces to intensify marketing the CocoPPa app in Japan and Mainland China. To date the application has over 12 million downloads worldwide, with 83% of its entire user base spread across 150 countries outside Japan, mainly the US, Europe and South East Asian regions.

As a part of the partnership with Baidu, CocoPPa will provide a variety of user-generated keypad background designs for Simeji, Baidu’s Japanese input method editor for Android platform which has about 6 million downloads to date.

While CocoPPa has a strong following in the US (42% of its entire user base is there), just 2% of its users come from Mainland China. The Japanese company plans to introduce a simplified Chinese version of CocoPPa soon, helping its user acquisition efforts through the partnership with Baidu.

Some of our readers may recall that Baidu recently partnered with Booklap, a Japanese startup providing a consumer book discovery service. The Chinese company has been gathering content in an effort to establish a solid presence in the Japanese market.

EA’s Tetris Monsters is now Japan’s top iPhone game

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This week saw the launch of EA’s ambitious new mobile game for Japan, Tetris Monsters. The game is a puzzle-meets-RPG hybrid, and it’s very clear that EA is trying to follow the model set by Japan’s favorite mobile game Puzzle & Dragons. Since launching on the Japanese App Store late Tuesday night, Tetris Monsters has rapidly ascended the iOS charts, and today it became the top ranked game in Japan, and the second ranked free app overall. (Update 17:45 JST: It is now the top ranked overall app, no doubt thanks to this article!) Social games expert Serkan Toto expressed his thoughts on the title so far: I think the game is very well executed and contains all the elements of a hit game in Japan: local production, good graphics and sound, all the usual monetization techniques, great IP, a bit of innovation on the puzzle mechanics etc. Coincidentally, on the same day that Tetris Monsters launched, Puzzle & Dragons publisher GungHo Online Entertainment announced (PDF) that it had surpassed 18 million downloads. Serkan also questions whether EA can win over these fans who are already so deeply invested in P&D [1]. If the game proves to be a success…

tetris_monsters_wide

This week saw the launch of EA’s ambitious new mobile game for Japan, Tetris Monsters. The game is a puzzle-meets-RPG hybrid, and it’s very clear that EA is trying to follow the model set by Japan’s favorite mobile game Puzzle & Dragons.

Since launching on the Japanese App Store late Tuesday night, Tetris Monsters has rapidly ascended the iOS charts, and today it became the top ranked game in Japan, and the second ranked free app overall. (Update 17:45 JST: It is now the top ranked overall app, no doubt thanks to this article!)

Social games expert Serkan Toto expressed his thoughts on the title so far:

I think the game is very well executed and contains all the elements of a hit game in Japan: local production, good graphics and sound, all the usual monetization techniques, great IP, a bit of innovation on the puzzle mechanics etc.

Coincidentally, on the same day that Tetris Monsters launched, Puzzle & Dragons publisher GungHo Online Entertainment announced (PDF) that it had surpassed 18 million downloads. Serkan also questions whether EA can win over these fans who are already so deeply invested in P&D [1].

If the game proves to be a success here in Japan, then surely EA will port it to other mature mobile markets like the US or Korea. Tetris Monsters might have even better luck building momentum outside Japan, where Puzzle & Dragons won’t be the same kind of obstacle.

Check out our quick demo video of Tetris Monsters below if you’d like a quick introduction to how it works.


  1. By ‘deeply invested’, we can also interpret this in a financial sense as well, since the game has been a huge money maker for publisher GungHo.  ↩

Japanese photographer to hold ‘Cosplay made in Japan’ exhibition

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Japan’s cosplay culture has attracted fans all over the world. And one photographer at the center of this culture is Yuji Sudo. This August he is holding his first solo exhibition for a series called ‘Cosplay Made in Japan’. The collection of works, titled ‘Between erotic and shameful,’ showcases his works from the past 15 years where he has examined the thin line that exists between eroticism and cosplay. All of the cosplay costumes are original, made by Team Cosplay. Yuji Sudo was born in 1963 and he graduated from Nihon University’s art program, after which he moved New York. After returning to Japan he began work as photographer focusing on fashion, music, and advertisement. The ‘Cosplay Made in Japan’ exhibition will be held at the Emon Photo Gallery in Hiroo, Tokyo starting on August 24th and running until September 14th. For those of you who can’t make it to the gallery, his works can also be found in his recent book entitled Dempa Models x 100Cosplay where he worked as a producer in collaboration with an upcoming Japanese pop idol group Denpagumi. You can check learn more about ‘Cosplay Made in Japan’ on this Facebook page. Check out some…

Cosplay-madeinJapan2

Japan’s cosplay culture has attracted fans all over the world. And one photographer at the center of this culture is Yuji Sudo.

This August he is holding his first solo exhibition for a series called ‘Cosplay Made in Japan’. The collection of works, titled ‘Between erotic and shameful,’ showcases his works from the past 15 years where he has examined the thin line that exists between eroticism and cosplay. All of the cosplay costumes are original, made by Team Cosplay.

Yuji Sudo was born in 1963 and he graduated from Nihon University’s art program, after which he moved New York. After returning to Japan he began work as photographer focusing on fashion, music, and advertisement.

The ‘Cosplay Made in Japan’ exhibition will be held at the Emon Photo Gallery in Hiroo, Tokyo starting on August 24th and running until September 14th. For those of you who can’t make it to the gallery, his works can also be found in his recent book entitled Dempa Models x 100Cosplay where he worked as a producer in collaboration with an upcoming Japanese pop idol group Denpagumi.

You can check learn more about ‘Cosplay Made in Japan’ on this Facebook page. Check out some more of Sudo’s works below.

Cosplay-madeinJapan1

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Cosplay-madeinJapan4

Cosplay-madeinJapan5

Japan’s KLab partners with Kabam to better serve US and European users

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Japanese mobile game developer KLab (TSE:3656) today announced that it has partnered with US-based Kabam to start publishing apps in the US and Europe using Kabam’s publishing platform. As part of the partnership, the Japanese company plans to start distributing Eternal Uprising next month, a remake app of fantasy RPG Requiem of God Destruction that won over many Japanese fans in 2012. To date KLab has been providing apps to the global market through its US subsidiary, but it will switch its distribution channels in Europe to the Kabam platform, since markets in the region have different languages and different charging models. The US company has channels to 100 different markets around the world, which provides help for Klab in terms of app localization, marketing, and fees collection. Kabam established a $50 million fund last April to help Asian game developers generate revenue in US and European markets. For the US company, the partnership with KLab is the first step of the initiative. In Europe, the smartphone gaming app market recently started to pick up, and many Japanese gaming companies are aggressively looking for local partners to intensify their European businesses. KLab had a 1.1 billion yen (about $11 million)…

klab_kabam_logos

Japanese mobile game developer KLab (TSE:3656) today announced that it has partnered with US-based Kabam to start publishing apps in the US and Europe using Kabam’s publishing platform. As part of the partnership, the Japanese company plans to start distributing Eternal Uprising next month, a remake app of fantasy RPG Requiem of God Destruction that won over many Japanese fans in 2012.

To date KLab has been providing apps to the global market through its US subsidiary, but it will switch its distribution channels in Europe to the Kabam platform, since markets in the region have different languages and different charging models. The US company has channels to 100 different markets around the world, which provides help for Klab in terms of app localization, marketing, and fees collection.

eternal-uprising_screenshot

Kabam established a $50 million fund last April to help Asian game developers generate revenue in US and European markets. For the US company, the partnership with KLab is the first step of the initiative.

In Europe, the smartphone gaming app market recently started to pick up, and many Japanese gaming companies are aggressively looking for local partners to intensify their European businesses.

KLab had a 1.1 billion yen (about $11 million) operating loss last year due to delays publishing new game titles. But it showed rapid recovery in the last few months, and raised 930 million yen (about $9.3 million) from Japanese ad agency Hakuhodo (TSE:2433) and Oak Capital last month.

Flirt with virtual characters in Japanese chat simulator game

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Games that simulates love and relationships are always a popular genre here in Japan. Searching the term ‘love simulation’ on Japanese app review portal Appget gives no less than 17 results. One of the newest ones is ‘Henshin-Kudasai’, which can roughly be translated as ‘Please text me back’. The app is a casual game that simulates romantic texting in a familiar chat application user interace. Henshin-Kudasai was released just two weeks ago, but already it has nabbed more than 500,000 downloads. The app’s interface is as simple, resembling a regular mobile chat app. After installing, you can input your sex and your name, and then characters of the opposite sex will start texting you. There are 26 characters in total, including both men and women. Each of these characters has a distinct personality, such as a 34-year-old Kabuki actor, a 37-year-old chef, or a 26-year-old struggling pop idol. The goal of the game is to win as much love as possible by choosing responses that your the counterpart might like. This includes the timing of your responses, so if you want to play hard to get, you might let some time pass before responding to someone’s text. By accurately anticipating…

henshin-kudasai-logo

Games that simulates love and relationships are always a popular genre here in Japan. Searching the term ‘love simulation’ on Japanese app review portal Appget gives no less than 17 results.

One of the newest ones is ‘Henshin-Kudasai’, which can roughly be translated as ‘Please text me back’. The app is a casual game that simulates romantic texting in a familiar chat application user interace. Henshin-Kudasai was released just two weeks ago, but already it has nabbed more than 500,000 downloads.

The app’s interface is as simple, resembling a regular mobile chat app. After installing, you can input your sex and your name, and then characters of the opposite sex will start texting you. There are 26 characters in total, including both men and women. Each of these characters has a distinct personality, such as a 34-year-old Kabuki actor, a 37-year-old chef, or a 26-year-old struggling pop idol.

The goal of the game is to win as much love as possible by choosing responses that your the counterpart might like. This includes the timing of your responses, so if you want to play hard to get, you might let some time pass before responding to someone’s text. By accurately anticipating what a character prefers, the heart mark within the chat interface turns pink, showing how much the other person likes you.

The company behind this popular love simulation game is a Japanese internet company called Basic. In the past, they have has released apps such as Light the match, and Eto Eto Wars which uses characters from the Chinese zodiac.

Henshin-Kudasai can be downloaded for free over for both iOS and Android.

Henshin-Kudasai_ios henshin-kudasai-3 henshin-kudasai-ios-2

Check out the sights from LINE’s ‘Hello Friends’ event [Photos]

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Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending Line Corporation’s ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ event, the second such conference for the Japanese mobile powerhouse. If you’d like to replay the event in its entirety, it’s still available over on Ustream. We covered all the highlights here if you’d like a quick rundown. But for those who couldn’t attend the event in person, we thought we’d share some of the sights that weren’t shown on the livestream. If you check out the photos below, you can see some of the fun that took place outside the conference hall, most of which focused around Line’s characters and a merchandise shop. It was somewhat symbolic that Line held this event right next to Tokyo Disneyland, perhaps making a subtle statement about their aspirations for the Line character business, now being rebranding as ‘Line Friends.’ For even more information on the growth Line, check out our interactive Line Timeline, now in both English and Japanese.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending Line Corporation’s ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ event, the second such conference for the Japanese mobile powerhouse. If you’d like to replay the event in its entirety, it’s still available over on Ustream. We covered all the highlights here if you’d like a quick rundown.

But for those who couldn’t attend the event in person, we thought we’d share some of the sights that weren’t shown on the livestream. If you check out the photos below, you can see some of the fun that took place outside the conference hall, most of which focused around Line’s characters and a merchandise shop.

It was somewhat symbolic that Line held this event right next to Tokyo Disneyland, perhaps making a subtle statement about their aspirations for the Line character business, now being rebranding as ‘Line Friends.’

For even more information on the growth Line, check out our interactive Line Timeline, now in both English and Japanese.

Reception at the event. At this point I'm suspecting there will be lots of green today.
Reception at the event. At this point I’m suspecting there will be lots of green today.
Line's fancy press passes. Very cool.
Line’s fancy press passes. Very cool.
Line characters
Line characters guard the entrance to the auditorium
Line's in-house media crew getting ready
Line’s in-house media crew getting ready
CEO Akira Morikawa on stage
CEO Akira Morikawa on stage. Nice suit.
Line animations play before intermission
Line animations play before intermission
During the 20 minute break, attendees could check out the line store. These three greet you at the entrance.
During the 20 minute break, attendees could check out the line store. These three greet you at the entrance.
Line Pop and Line Pokopang roulette. Win some balloons and other merch.
Line Pop and Line Pokopang roulette. Win some balloons and other merch.
Line character James etched in frosted glass on the store window
Line character James etched in frosted glass on the store window
Line characters were in attendance too, getting pics taken with attendees
Line characters were in attendance too, getting pics taken with attendees
more photo ops
more photo ops
Line character figures near the entrance
Line character figures near the entrance
A souvenir from the show. Line character donut. I bit into his head!
A souvenir from the show. Line character donut. I bit into his head!

New iPhone Twitter client from Japan lets you send stickers!

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Readers may recall back in April when we featured the very clever Stamp Messenger, an app that lets users send animated stamps in Facebook messages. Since then, of course, Facebook has added support for its own stickers, although they’re not especially impressive. But the company behind Stamp Messenger, Tokyo-based Pickles Inc., has been busy with something else in the meantime. Now it is bringing Asian sticker fun to Twitter via its new app PicTwick. It’s an iOS Twitter client that, in addition to having a slick design, lets you send sticker images to your friends quickly and easily. Check out our demo video above to see how it works. It’s a media-rich experience, supporting the in-line display of photos and video from 13 different services, including Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Tumblr, Path and more. And for those who like a customized Twitter client, PicTwick includes 11 different colorful skins – although so far I find myself liking the wood finish of the default theme very much. You can also load your own backgrounds from a wide selection, or even load your own background from your camera roll. But it should be noted that viewing these stickers outside the app…

Readers may recall back in April when we featured the very clever Stamp Messenger, an app that lets users send animated stamps in Facebook messages. Since then, of course, Facebook has added support for its own stickers, although they’re not especially impressive.

But the company behind Stamp Messenger, Tokyo-based Pickles Inc., has been busy with something else in the meantime. Now it is bringing Asian sticker fun to Twitter via its new app PicTwick. It’s an iOS Twitter client that, in addition to having a slick design, lets you send sticker images to your friends quickly and easily. Check out our demo video above to see how it works.

It’s a media-rich experience, supporting the in-line display of photos and video from 13 different services, including Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Tumblr, Path and more.

And for those who like a customized Twitter client, PicTwick includes 11 different colorful skins – although so far I find myself liking the wood finish of the default theme very much. You can also load your own backgrounds from a wide selection, or even load your own background from your camera roll.

But it should be noted that viewing these stickers outside the app is not as smooth as it is from within PicTwick. Users will see a web link with the sticker, as well as links that encourage you to download the application. (Update: It looks like you can view them on Twitter, but not in direct messages) [1].

It’s still a pretty solid Twitter client though, even if you never send a single sticker. So if you’d like to try out PicTwick for yourself, you can get it for free over on the App Store. (h/t Weekly Ascii)

pictwick_sticker pictwick_ash

pictwick_support pictwick_skins


  1. I’d also love to see List support, although I expect that wouldn’t be a priority for Pickles.  ↩

Japanese Google Glass challenger raises $5 million

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See the original story in Japanese. Telepathy is a Japanese startup focused on developing wearable technology. The company is led by serial entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi, the inventor of the pioneering augmented reality app Sekai Camera. Telepathy announced today it has raised $5 million from Silicon Valley-based VC Firsthand Technology Value Fund (NASDAQ:SVVC). The fund is known for having previously invested in prominent tech companies including Facebook and Twitter. The startup unveiled its first product, Telepathy One, last year at SXSW, positioned as a direct competitor to Google Glass. There will be an SDK for app developers this fall, and the company will begin marketing the device in 2014. With these new funds, the company will hire more engineers to work at its headquarters in Silicon Valley.  Iguchi explained: Wearable technology will enable the next wave in social networking, […] and the initial response to our Telepathy One prototype has been astounding. The $5 million funding will enable us to enrich the user experience of Telepathy One, which we expect to bring to market in 2014. If you are a hardware or software engineer interested in working with the company, you can find more details here. The startup also announced today…

telepathy prototype

See the original story in Japanese.

Telepathy is a Japanese startup focused on developing wearable technology. The company is led by serial entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi, the inventor of the pioneering augmented reality app Sekai Camera. Telepathy announced today it has raised $5 million from Silicon Valley-based VC Firsthand Technology Value Fund (NASDAQ:SVVC). The fund is known for having previously invested in prominent tech companies including Facebook and Twitter.

The startup unveiled its first product, Telepathy One, last year at SXSW, positioned as a direct competitor to Google Glass. There will be an SDK for app developers this fall, and the company will begin marketing the device in 2014. With these new funds, the company will hire more engineers to work at its headquarters in Silicon Valley. 

Telepathy's Takahito Iguchi, chief investment officer of Firsthand Kevin Landis
Telepathy’s Takahito Iguchi, chief investment officer of Firsthand Kevin Landis

Iguchi explained:

Wearable technology will enable the next wave in social networking, […] and the initial response to our Telepathy One prototype has been astounding.

The $5 million funding will enable us to enrich the user experience of Telepathy One, which we expect to bring to market in 2014.

If you are a hardware or software engineer interested in working with the company, you can find more details here.

The startup also announced today that Peter Hoddie, the former QucikTime architect at Apple, has joined its advisory board. They plan to bring his experience in digital video technology to the development of their wearable device.

For more infomation on Telepathy One, check out the short news clip below.

Japanese startup Booklap partners with Baidu’s Hao123

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See the original story in Japanese. Booklap is a handy service that helps you find great books. It does so by presenting quotes from books that have that impressed other users. Tokyo-based Prosbee, the startup behind the initiative, recently announced it has partnered with the world’s second largest search engine, Baidu, to provide this quote presentation on the Japanese version of Hao123, a web directory from the Chinese search giant. According to Alexa, Hao123 ranks as the 29th most popular global site, and 6th in Mainland China. This traffic volume is about equal to that of Google Japan, MSN, or Pinterest. The site has a significant presence among users over 30. And with this partnership, the startup aims to make more middle-aged users aware of its service. Booklap is presenting its content for Japanese users, but they have been aggressively participating in many startup competitions outside Japan. This leads us to believe that they’re interested in business expansion around the Asian region. We’ve asked Baidu about whether they plan to extend this collaboration beyond the Japanese language, but we have not yet received any comment on that. In an entertainment industry crowded with various media formats, busy consumers everywhere want…

hao123-booklap_logos

See the original story in Japanese.

Booklap is a handy service that helps you find great books. It does so by presenting quotes from books that have that impressed other users. Tokyo-based Prosbee, the startup behind the initiative, recently announced it has partnered with the world’s second largest search engine, Baidu, to provide this quote presentation on the Japanese version of Hao123, a web directory from the Chinese search giant.

According to Alexa, Hao123 ranks as the 29th most popular global site, and 6th in Mainland China. This traffic volume is about equal to that of Google Japan, MSN, or Pinterest.

The site has a significant presence among users over 30. And with this partnership, the startup aims to make more middle-aged users aware of its service.

Booklap is presenting its content for Japanese users, but they have been aggressively participating in many startup competitions outside Japan. This leads us to believe that they’re interested in business expansion around the Asian region. We’ve asked Baidu about whether they plan to extend this collaboration beyond the Japanese language, but we have not yet received any comment on that.

In an entertainment industry crowded with various media formats, busy consumers everywhere want a service that recommends books they’ll like. So I expect the startup to start working on global expansions as soon as possible.

Hao123 was launched back in 1999 and was acquired by Baidu in 2004. The directory launched its Japanese version back in 2012, and has been gathering attractive content to establish a solid presence in the Japanese market. Prior to partnering with Booklap, the Chinese giant also started content syndication with Japanese entertainment wesite Bokete.jp.

Booklap raised 20 million yen (approximately $200,000) last month from Incubate Fund, Voyage Ventures, and Genuine Startups.

booklap_screenshot