Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has officially surpassed 19 million monthly active users in Japan, putting it well ahead of domestic rival Mixi, which has been spinning its wheels in the past year or so at around 15 million. Serkan Toto points out today that this figure comes directly from Facebook Japan’s country growth manager Taro Kodama during Social Media Week here in Tokyo.
I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, of course, is that it shows that Facebook is growing well in Japan, a country where some thought early on that it would fail due Japan’s unique distaste for using real names on the internet. Facebook’s growth before the 2011 earthquake was indeed modest, although in the wake of that tragedy many people apparently realized the value of a social network that reflected real world connections, as growth would accelerate after that.
This new data point also clarifies recentconfusion that Facebook’s user numbers in Japan might be plummeting by the millions, as indicated by Social Bakers, which pulls data from Facebook’s own ad tool. The latter (and by extension the former) probably shouldn’t be trusted for anything more than a general guide [1]. Such headlines spring up for other countries occasionally too, and it’s best not to make too much commotion when such ‘user drops’ occur.
Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate is planning to launch another co-working space at Odaiba, Tokyo’s waterfront area. The group already has a venue for incubating startups at another location, but the new one will focus on gadget and hardware manufacturing startups. It is jointly organized with a local architectural firm. The new incubation venue will be called MONO, and will be launched in the end of this month. To commemorate the opening the incubator recently held an exhibition and conference event for startups called Samurai MONO Festival Vol. 1, featuring a number of notable people from the gadget and hardware manufacturing scene. Let’s have a look at some of the interesting ideas and startups who we met at the event [1]. The Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, Tokyo ¶ A team from this university showed us several interesting ideas including: Kansei Senkyoku – Mind Jukebox ¶ Kansei Senkyoku (literally ‘music selection by sense’) chooses a song that fits your current feeling by detecting your brain waves. It’s known that alpha brain waves emerge when you are stable before sleep, and the beta wave is usually seen when you are doing something that requires concentration. Accordingly, the app selects a song…
February 16th 2013, at Telecom Center in Aomi, Tokyo
Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate is planning to launch another co-working space at Odaiba, Tokyo’s waterfront area. The group already has a venue for incubating startups at another location, but the new one will focus on gadget and hardware manufacturing startups. It is jointly organized with a local architectural firm.
The new incubation venue will be called MONO, and will be launched in the end of this month. To commemorate the opening the incubator recently held an exhibition and conference event for startups called Samurai MONO Festival Vol. 1, featuring a number of notable people from the gadget and hardware manufacturing scene.
Let’s have a look at some of the interesting ideas and startups who we met at the event [1].
The Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, Tokyo ¶
A team from this university showed us several interesting ideas including:
Kansei Senkyoku (literally ‘music selection by sense’) chooses a song that fits your current feeling by detecting your brain waves. It’s known that alpha brain waves emerge when you are stable before sleep, and the beta wave is usually seen when you are doing something that requires concentration. Accordingly, the app selects a song to play, and help you get a better sleep or do your work more efficiently.
This tablet app’s name is a combination of ‘recipe’ and ‘receipt’, and it helps you find a recipe for a meal the items you have just bought at the supermarket. By scanning the receipts for your groceries, the app will search for possible meals that can be cooked with these materials. You can then print out the recipe from Ricoh’s internet-enabled photocopiers. (The project is jointly conducted with Ricoh.)
Large glass projection film, often used for digital signage systems at convenience stores and other public places, is usually very costly. But by combining normal frosted-glass and a camera-enabled Android handset, the team has developed a very cheap interactive touch panel system that allows users to control a screen with flicking motions over top of the glass, as your fingers are detected by the camera of the Android handset on the other side of the glass. The coodinate data for the screen is stored in a Google Docs file, and the app will show you the next screen which corresponds to your finger motion.
Link, a user-generated, short novel posting site ¶
With this app users can create multiple parallel universes, based on someone else’s previous postings. This collective/collaborate writing results in a wide variety of novel endings, which sounds like a lot of fun. The app is expected to be available on iOS and Android soon.
This idea reminds me of the British-American film Sliding Doors, where the story alternates between two parallel universes.
Goeng, an iOS app that aims to help Japanese Facebook users communicate with foreigners ¶
Goeng helps Japanese Facebook users find friends from outside the country who share the same hobbies and interests, or like the same things. Once you and that friend get along well, you can obtain their national flag and add it to your collection. Through this sort of collection you can also earn badges.
Making a report and submitting it to your boss on a daily basis can often be way too much hassle. Gamba allows employees to post daily reports to their bosses in a very easy way. I assumed this app was targeting SMEs or startups, but the app’s creator says they have many big Japanese companies as their users as well.
The festival also had an elevator-pitch session, where entrepreneurs were requested to pitch with a handheld megaphone (see picture below). When all was said and done, the winners were:
3rd place:Shokunin-san, a job matching site for construction workers.
2nd place:Anipipo, a crowdfunding site for animation content. It’s launching soon but still waiting for Paypal to approve them as a merchant.
1st place:Craftstep, a how-to collection of handcraft matters, including things like Japanese paper foldings.
Tablet-focused web developer Social Agent pitches at Mono Festival
Note that not all the startups introduced above have received fundraising from Samurai Incubate. ↩
We’ve covered the cutthroat chat application war in the Japanese market in a recent post, illustrating how NHN Japan’s Line leads the game so far, with DeNA’s Comm and KakaoTalk as distant runners-up. As if there weren’t enough chat apps already, CyberAgent (TYO:4751) just launched yet another player, but this one has a slightly different angle. Decolink (yes, it’s another Deco-something app!) is CyberAgent’s newly minted application for iOS and Android, which is aming to snag teenage girls as its target users. The app lets you chat with a maximum of 100 friends, and you can also change the background image and fonts for different chat windows. This latter ability to customize the look of a product is essential when the primarily target market is younger girls. What’s even more essential perhaps are the decorative stamps, of which Decolink provides over 10,000. Stamps are often cited as the major reason behind Line’s huge success so far. Sort of like emoji on steriods, people often use stamps in chat to express themselves instead of using text. In much the same way that a Facebook Like is a sort of mindless response that doesn’t require any words, stamps are often used…
We’ve covered the cutthroat chat application war in the Japanese market in a recent post, illustrating how NHN Japan’s Line leads the game so far, with DeNA’s Comm and KakaoTalk as distant runners-up. As if there weren’t enough chat apps already, CyberAgent (TYO:4751) just launched yet another player, but this one has a slightly different angle.
Decolink (yes, it’s another Deco-something app!) is CyberAgent’s newly minted application for iOS and Android, which is aming to snag teenage girls as its target users. The app lets you chat with a maximum of 100 friends, and you can also change the background image and fonts for different chat windows. This latter ability to customize the look of a product is essential when the primarily target market is younger girls.
What’s even more essential perhaps are the decorative stamps, of which Decolink provides over 10,000. Stamps are often cited as the major reason behind Line’s huge success so far. Sort of like emoji on steriods, people often use stamps in chat to express themselves instead of using text. In much the same way that a Facebook Like is a sort of mindless response that doesn’t require any words, stamps are often used in the same way among many Japanese users.
Deco-disrupter?
CyberAgent does have a competitive advantage, as the company runs the huge Ameba Blog platform which had more than 20 million users as of January 2012. The platform is widely used by Japanese people including celebrities. Through cross-promotions with other products under the Ameba umbrella, Decolink might be able to eclipse some of the other chat app competitors — although it’s unlikely that it could catch Line.
Decolink was developed by a team within CyberAgent that creates products dedicated for teens. I have to wonder if these cute, more feminine stamps are a key differeciator from Line, and if any teenage girls will take the bait. We’ll find out sooner or later, so stay tuned.
Few among us can resist the simple pleasure of popping bubble wrap. Japan’s Bandai capitalized on this widespread public fetish a few years back when it produced its Mugen Puchipuchi keychain. And now, phone accessory vendor Strapya has just released a similar product, as its new Puchipuchi iPhone 5 case brings bubble wrap goodness to the backside of the Apple’s latest smartphone. Like Bandai’s keychain, the bubbles can be popped an infinite number of times, so you can keep popping for as long as you want — or until someone comes along and punches you in the face for making a racket, whichever comes first. Check out the demo video below, which shows some lucky fellow in bubble-popping ecstacy. The case is priced at 2,100 yen (or about $23) and can be ordered from the Strapya website. Of course that case only gives you bubble popping on the back of your iPhone. But if you’d like to take care of the front too, check out the Puchipuchi kibun application for iOS which lets you pop virtual bubbles on your screen. Similarly for Android users, there’s the Hatsune Miku-themed bubble pack + miku application available on Google Play.
Few among us can resist the simple pleasure of popping bubble wrap. Japan’s Bandai capitalized on this widespread public fetish a few years back when it produced its Mugen Puchipuchi keychain. And now, phone accessory vendor Strapya has just released a similar product, as its new Puchipuchi iPhone 5 case brings bubble wrap goodness to the backside of the Apple’s latest smartphone.
Like Bandai’s keychain, the bubbles can be popped an infinite number of times, so you can keep popping for as long as you want — or until someone comes along and punches you in the face for making a racket, whichever comes first. Check out the demo video below, which shows some lucky fellow in bubble-popping ecstacy.
The case is priced at 2,100 yen (or about $23) and can be ordered from the Strapya website.
Of course that case only gives you bubble popping on the back of your iPhone. But if you’d like to take care of the front too, check out the Puchipuchi kibun application for iOS which lets you pop virtual bubbles on your screen. Similarly for Android users, there’s the Hatsune Miku-themed bubble pack + miku application available on Google Play.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) apparently has its sights set on Japan as the next market for its Surface tablet. And the software giant is apparently sparing no expense in its promotion, as teaser advertising has gone up in the prime areas in Tokyo, with a Surface ad at Shibuya’s Q-front (above) overlooking perhaps the most dense area on the planet in terms of foot traffic. Surface ads have also sprung up at Matsuya Ginza, a very famous department store, as well as near the iconic Tokyo Sky Tree. Impress PC Watch an assortment of photos if you’d like to check them out. This follows a report from Japan’s Nikkei (via CNet) that Microsoft’s tablet could arrive in Japan as early as next month. It’s expected that it will be the Surface RT edition, which has already made its way to markets in Europe, as well as selected APAC regions like Hong Kong, China, and Australia. Speaking to CNet, Microsoft didn’t add any significant details about the tablet’s availability in Japan. But given the emergence of these very prominent — and very big — teaser ads, you can expect we’ll see the Surface dropping in Japan very soon.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) apparently has its sights set on Japan as the next market for its Surface tablet. And the software giant is apparently sparing no expense in its promotion, as teaser advertising has gone up in the prime areas in Tokyo, with a Surface ad at Shibuya’s Q-front (above) overlooking perhaps the most dense area on the planet in terms of foot traffic.
Surface ads have also sprung up at Matsuya Ginza, a very famous department store, as well as near the iconic Tokyo Sky Tree. Impress PC Watch an assortment of photos if you’d like to check them out.
This follows a report from Japan’s Nikkei (via CNet) that Microsoft’s tablet could arrive in Japan as early as next month. It’s expected that it will be the Surface RT edition, which has already made its way to markets in Europe, as well as selected APAC regions like Hong Kong, China, and Australia.
Speaking to CNet, Microsoft didn’t add any significant details about the tablet’s availability in Japan. But given the emergence of these very prominent — and very big — teaser ads, you can expect we’ll see the Surface dropping in Japan very soon.
Gyao, a broadband video distribution company and a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), and Japanese social gaming giant Gree (TYO:3632) announced today the two companies have agreed to establish a fund to invest in animation content development. The fund will be worth 100 million yen (over $1 million dollars), and the two companies will split the ownership of the joint venture 50/50, and it will tentatively be called ‘Future Content Partners’. Content from the fund’s portfolio companies is expected to be distributed to Yahoo Japan’s premium service subscribers in formats for broadband video streaming, in social gaming, and more. Gyao, Gree, and Yahoo Japan have agreed to set up an information portal in the first half of this year, which focuses on introducing animated content such as games, video titles, and e-comic books. A recent survey says that the Japanese animation business is worth 219.7 billion yen (or approximately $2.3 billion), and revenues have been on the rise for the last three years. When we look at the retail business that springs from the animation industry, such as merchandising character toys, its volume exceeds more than a trillion ($10.6 billion). So it’s definitely a lucrative space. GREE (English / Japanese)
Gyao, a broadband video distribution company and a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), and Japanese social gaming giant Gree (TYO:3632) announced today the two companies have agreed to establish a fund to invest in animation content development. The fund will be worth 100 million yen (over $1 million dollars), and the two companies will split the ownership of the joint venture 50/50, and it will tentatively be called ‘Future Content Partners’.
Content from the fund’s portfolio companies is expected to be distributed to Yahoo Japan’s premium service subscribers in formats for broadband video streaming, in social gaming, and more. Gyao, Gree, and Yahoo Japan have agreed to set up an information portal in the first half of this year, which focuses on introducing animated content such as games, video titles, and e-comic books.
A recent survey says that the Japanese animation business is worth 219.7 billion yen (or approximately $2.3 billion), and revenues have been on the rise for the last three years. When we look at the retail business that springs from the animation industry, such as merchandising character toys, its volume exceeds more than a trillion ($10.6 billion). So it’s definitely a lucrative space.
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
Yukari Mitsuhashi
