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Salaryman turned online star: This Japanese YouTuber has 2.3M subscribers

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.12.13

Youtube recently unveiled its Youtube Rewind 2013, a look back at some of the most viewed videos and YouTubers on the site. In Japan, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu nabbed a bunch of top spots (first, third and fourth place) among all music videos. Looking at the top ten Youtube channels overall in Japan, we can see huge entertainment entities like the agency Avex and idol supergroup AKB48. But surprisingly the fifth spot is occupied by the only individual performer to make the list, Hikakin TV. He is a 24-year-old human beatbox performer who has been active on YouTube since 2006. His channel now has over 2.3 million subscribers with a whopping 400 million total views. Although he initially began performing just his human beatbox routine and techniques (which you can check out in the video below), Hikakin now broadcasts a variety of short performances on four different channels. One YouTube channel is dedicated a live report of himself playing games called HikakinGames. Considering that the majority of his fans are young digital natives who also play games, this sort of content makes sense. His online popularity eventually led to appearances on TV and other media. His published book, entitled My Job…

Youtube recently unveiled its Youtube Rewind 2013, a look back at some of the most viewed videos and YouTubers on the site. In Japan, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu nabbed a bunch of top spots (first, third and fourth place) among all music videos.

Looking at the top ten Youtube channels overall in Japan, we can see huge entertainment entities like the agency Avex and idol supergroup AKB48. But surprisingly the fifth spot is occupied by the only individual performer to make the list, Hikakin TV. He is a 24-year-old human beatbox performer who has been active on YouTube since 2006.

His channel now has over 2.3 million subscribers with a whopping 400 million total views. Although he initially began performing just his human beatbox routine and techniques (which you can check out in the video below), Hikakin now broadcasts a variety of short performances on four different channels.

One YouTube channel is dedicated a live report of himself playing games called HikakinGames. Considering that the majority of his fans are young digital natives who also play games, this sort of content makes sense.

His online popularity eventually led to appearances on TV and other media. His published book, entitled My Job is Youtube, came out back in July. Hikakin has also released an Android app,HikakinBeat, which lets anyone become a creative and platful DJ.

His is the story of a salaryman turned into an online star. Hikakin is definitely a digital pioneer, whose online popularity gave him the chance to expand to traditional media.

Here he is making Super Mario beatbox sounds in the video below.

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U.S. teens show Facebook fatigue. But what about kids in Japan?

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.04.15

According to new research by Piper Jaffray, teens are growing tired of popular web destinations like Facebook and Youtube. They are moving on to sites like Reddit, Twitter, Vine, 4chan, and even SnapChat. But is this also true in Japan? Video Research Interative conducted a survey that might have the answer. The survey was done in Janurary of this year, and it found that the most frequently visited site among university students is Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), followed by Google, Facebook, and Youtube. In comparison to teenagers, university students preferred sites like Facebook and Hatena, whereas teenagers preferred Youtube, FC2, and Ameba. Hatena operates series of web services like Hatena Diary, Jinriki Search Hatena (Jinriki means manpower in English), and the Japanese Delicious equivalent Hatena Bookmark. Ameba operates a lineup of services as well, but is mostly known for its blogging platform. The smartphone penetration of survey respondents has grown from 15.1% in November of 2010 to 43.5% in 2011, and 68.9% in same period last year. Many university students decided to switch from feature phones to smartphones when beginning their job-hunting in order to check for updated information and emails on the go. To keep up with the rapidly shifting…

According to new research by Piper Jaffray, teens are growing tired of popular web destinations like Facebook and Youtube. They are moving on to sites like Reddit, Twitter, Vine, 4chan, and even SnapChat. But is this also true in Japan? Video Research Interative conducted a survey that might have the answer.

The survey was done in Janurary of this year, and it found that the most frequently visited site among university students is Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), followed by Google, Facebook, and Youtube. In comparison to teenagers, university students preferred sites like Facebook and Hatena, whereas teenagers preferred Youtube, FC2, and Ameba. Hatena operates series of web services like Hatena Diary, Jinriki Search Hatena (Jinriki means manpower in English), and the Japanese Delicious equivalent Hatena Bookmark. Ameba operates a lineup of services as well, but is mostly known for its blogging platform.

The smartphone penetration of survey respondents has grown from 15.1% in November of 2010 to 43.5% in 2011, and 68.9% in same period last year. Many university students decided to switch from feature phones to smartphones when beginning their job-hunting in order to check for updated information and emails on the go.

To keep up with the rapidly shifting interests of young people, Japanese companies are coming up with different strategies. CyberAgent, for example created a dedicated team for girls’ products back in December of 2012.

The smartphone shipping volume grew 146% compared to last year, and one survey (by Markezine conducted in August of 2012) suggests that one in five girls use their smartphone for longer than ten hours a day. Smapo, the Japanese equivalent of ShopKick that we covered in a past article, is finding new partners for female brands to better satisfy this growing segment.

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Google Hangouts recruits Asian pop stars for new ‘A-Pop’ initiative

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.20

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market. The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout. On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout. Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple…

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market.

The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout.

On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout.

Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple in Shiba Park in front of the brightly lit Tokyo Tower. The spectacle was organized by mobile phone carrier au KDDI (TYO:9433) which turned the local area into a digital interactive theme park. 1,500 participants were able to manipulate taxis, water fountains, and street lights by using their smartphone as a remote control.

Google+ had 25 million users in Japan as of July 2011. The company’s celebrity-recruitment efforts first started in 2012, so the effect of such projects on growing its user base has yet to be fully realized. Stay tuned!

Her name is nearly impossible to pronounce, even for Japanese people. So don’t feel bad if you stumble! ↩

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Japan tech this week: Bahamut, business cards, and YouTube’s Valentine for Tokyo

Rick Martin 2013.02.15

In our second week live we enjoyed bringing you a wide range of stories. In case you missed any of them, here they are below — or if you’re on mobile, you may prefer to check them out on Readlists or in ePub format if that’s your thing. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here. We’re still in our infancy here, but we’d love your feedback — so drop us a line anytime mail. Featured ¶ Rage of Bahamut and Japan’s quest for global gamers A tough-luck Japanese auto-parts factory rebounds with an inspiring new side business Business ¶ Japanese developer Nijibox continues Southeast Asia push, launches ‘Legend of Fantasia’ on Kotagames YouTube opens its third global space for video creators in Tokyo Tokyo Otaku Mode raises additional funds from three VC firms Design ¶ Japanese designer ditches chopsticks for amazing musical fork Japanese manga artist crowdfunds digital exhibition overseas Fun Apps ¶ Japanese app ‘Poica’ wants to carry all your point cards (Video) A-Team’s ‘Dark Summoner’ tops 5 million downloads worldwide Yahoo Japan’s Face Stealer app transforms you into Obama, or anyone else you’d…

Squash FIlms enjoying the makeup room in YouTube Space Tokyo — Squash FIlms enjoying the makeup room in the new YouTube Space Tokyo

In our second week live we enjoyed bringing you a wide range of stories. In case you missed any of them, here they are below — or if you’re on mobile, you may prefer to check them out on Readlists or in ePub format if that’s your thing.

If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here.

We’re still in our infancy here, but we’d love your feedback — so drop us a line anytime mail.

Featured ¶

Business ¶

Design ¶

Fun Apps ¶

Standout Startups ¶

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YouTube opens its third global space for video creators in Tokyo

Rick Martin 2013.02.14

Read our Japanese report on this event Located a few floors below Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) high-rise Tokyo office, the internet giant today announced a brand new space dedicated to video creators in Japan and the Asia Pacific region. It’s new YouTube Space in Tokyo is the third of its kind for the company in the world, having previously opened a space in London back in July, as well as one in Los Angeles this past November. The multi-purpose area is about 700 square meters in total, and it includes a wide range of areas that would make any YouTube giddy. Among the rooms in the space will be a recording studio, an editing suite, a make-up room, a control room for Ustreaming, as well as a green screen. It’s a huge opportunity for local content creators in Tokyo, especially those who would not normally have have access to such high quality video production facilities. For members of YouTube’s partner program, the space will be free to use, and in addition to the great facilities they will also have an opportunity to work with other creators, hopefully leading to lots of cross-pollination of talent and interesting collaboration opportunities. Tom Pickett, the vice…

Read our Japanese report on this event

Located a few floors below Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) high-rise Tokyo office, the internet giant today announced a brand new space dedicated to video creators in Japan and the Asia Pacific region. It’s new YouTube Space in Tokyo is the third of its kind for the company in the world, having previously opened a space in London back in July, as well as one in Los Angeles this past November.

The multi-purpose area is about 700 square meters in total, and it includes a wide range of areas that would make any YouTube giddy. Among the rooms in the space will be a recording studio, an editing suite, a make-up room, a control room for Ustreaming, as well as a green screen.

It’s a huge opportunity for local content creators in Tokyo, especially those who would not normally have have access to such high quality video production facilities. For members of YouTube’s partner program, the space will be free to use, and in addition to the great facilities they will also have an opportunity to work with other creators, hopefully leading to lots of cross-pollination of talent and interesting collaboration opportunities.

Tom Pickett, the vice president and global head of content operations at YouTube, described the launch of this space as an investment in YouTube creators and an investment in Japan:

At YouTube we are building a platform to allow creators to make great content and reach audiences around the world. In my job I get to work with content creators around the globe and in Japan, and we see a huge opportunity in terms of the talent that is emerging here. Japanese creators are very passionate, and we felt it important to reward that passion with further investment.

In attendance for the launch was Squash Films, a local video content team that produces some incredibly humorous clips on their channel.

For up-and-coming video producers like Squash, this new space will certainly be an amazing place to work and improve their craft.

You can see some photos of the space below, and browse more over on Picasa.