I wrote a few weeks back about how with 100 million users, Line is the Japanese Facebook. The popular mobile application is far more than just a chat app, it is now a platform that was built by adding Line Channel back in July of 2012, a place where users can enjoy games, fortune-telling, and even discount coupons.
And today Line Corporation added yet another feature to its repertoire: Line Manga. Yes, the company is entering the mobile e-book business, both on iOS and Android. Major publishers such as Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Kodansha have already joined Line Manga with over 30,000 comics available, which can be bought using Line’s vitual currency Line Coin. One popular comic Uchu Kyodai (roughly translated as Space Brothers) is available, and anyone who downloads the comic can redeem exclusive Uchu Kyodai stamps. The first 10 pages of many of the comics can be read for free.
Line Manga leverages on Line’s core features allowing users to share their favorite comic on the Line timeline. There’s a campaign running until April 22nd, and anyone who shares their favorite comic on Line can get 10 Line Coins per share (a day), and for the first purchase of coins, users will receive 500 bonus coins. Another campaign running until May 6th (Golden Week), one volume of top 100 comic titles can be bought for half price.
The e-book industry in Japan already has big players like Rakuten’s Kobo and Amazon’s Kindle. But if anyone is going to succeed in the e-book business, Line certainly has the potential to do so. Japan’s 40% smartphone penetration rate continues to grow and over 45 million people in the country have downloaded the Line app, making it near ubiquitous among smartphone owners.
Mobile device and e-books are a good match in Japan, going back to Keitai Shosetu, or novels read on mobile. Back in 2006 to 2007 when feature phones were still dominant, these written-on-mobile novels were super popular, especially among young girls. It was sort of like blogging a novel. Some were so successful that they were made into actual books.
So for many people in Japan, reading casual manga on the Line app is not going to be an entirely new experience.
For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Line Manga, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
See the original story in Japanese. We frequently hear words like ‘usability’ or ’user experience”, but still very few developers have conducted user tests for their apps. So says Daisuke Hiraishi, the CEO of InnoBeta Inc., the up-and-coming startup behind the crowdsourced app testing service UIScope. Innnobeta announced today that it would be partnering with DeployGate, a smartphone app test platform run by Japanese social network operator Mixi. As we mentioned in our previous feature interview, DeployGate has acquired users from over 93 countries and been used for testing more than 4,000 apps worldwide. With this integration with DeployGate, Innobeta provides a one-stop service to be known by the name of ‘DeployGate Scope.’ It allows developers to provide crowdsourced usability testing not only for live apps but also for prototypes still under development. UI Scope was launched last October, and its team consists of three full-time workers, a freelance designer, and an engineer (who is attending grad school). The CEO Hiraishi used the bulletin board service WishScope to invite potential co-workers, including his CTO Takakiyo Aritaka. They’ve had been running a design-oriented app service, but faced many issues in the process of user testing. That experience made them…
We frequently hear words like ‘usability’ or ’user experience”, but still very few developers have conducted user tests for their apps.
So says Daisuke Hiraishi, the CEO of InnoBeta Inc., the up-and-coming startup behind the crowdsourced app testing service UIScope. Innnobeta announced today that it would be partnering with DeployGate, a smartphone app test platform run by Japanese social network operator Mixi. As we mentioned in our previous feature interview, DeployGate has acquired users from over 93 countries and been used for testing more than 4,000 apps worldwide.
With this integration with DeployGate, Innobeta provides a one-stop service to be known by the name of ‘DeployGate Scope.’ It allows developers to provide crowdsourced usability testing not only for live apps but also for prototypes still under development.
UI Scope was launched last October, and its team consists of three full-time workers, a freelance designer, and an engineer (who is attending grad school). The CEO Hiraishi used the bulletin board service WishScope to invite potential co-workers, including his CTO Takakiyo Aritaka. They’ve had been running a design-oriented app service, but faced many issues in the process of user testing. That experience made them realize that many app developers were likely facing the same problem. And this led to them to eventually launch the crowdsourced usability testing service, making use of a pool of testers to provide feedback to developers and designers.
Similar services exist, but there’s no testing service specifically focused on testing for smartphone apps. The majority of the startup’s clients are big Japanese companies such as Recruit or NEC Biglobe, but users from startups also on the rise.
Since launch last October, the service was used for 200 projects by 40 companies. 70% of developers have the service to get feedback on upgrades for their apps, and the rest are for testing initial releases.
In terms of specifying the layer of testers you want to ask, you may choose them according to age, gender. You can also select testers by other criteria, such as people who have tried out a specific service, or even someone who has recently traveled to a certain place. On average, every case takes about one week and with 10 testers. According to global measurement company NielsenJakob Nielsen, a test conducted with 10 five people is enough to find and identify 80% of all problems [1].
Mixi’s DeployGate
The testing process is an interesting one. Participating testers will receive a webcam for free from UI Scope. Testers are requested to record their testing task, speaking their impressions as they proceed step-by-step. By collecting those recorded videos, you can understand how testers thought and felt, why they pressed a certain button, or why they abandoned a screen on the app. These videos will then be passed on to clients. Pricing is 3,000 yen for testing, and clients will pay 15,000 yen on average, typically asking for around 5 testers. Analysis reports are also available as an additional option.
Strict requirements for testers
More than 4,000 people have signed up for the service to be testers. The startup is devising ways to get more applicants, although they have a very strict filtering process for those who want to be qualified testers. Potential testers receive two to three dummy tests a week, and only are few of them who yield good results and display a certain literacy level will finally qualify. After that they can can receive 500 yen compensation every time they finish a testing task. When compensation reaches 2,000 yen, it will be transferred to your bank account.
Housewives were invited to be testers through the startup’s ‘invite your friend’ campaign, and many students have signed up through an introduction from the startup’s partner companies. UI Scope has also partnered with Mamion, a chain operating PC training courses for the elderly, thus succeeding in acquiring some older testers as well. This broad variety of testers helps the startup to receive many testing orders from a wide range of companies.
For future problems they want to solve, Mr. Hiraishi further explains:
We need to some time to educate developers on the necessity of the usability testing. That’s why we’re organizing events like the “Smartphone Design Conference”. For usability testing, it usually requires 10 to 15 minutes for a testing case. Conducting the case with 10 testers, that means 100 minutes at least. We want to improve the service so that it allows users to see each [step] of the testing task. We look into providing more specifications about our testers, so that our clients will be able to conduct more targeted tests.
For now, most testings are conducted at home, but the startup is planning to develop an environment where people can do tests outside their home (useful for testing GPS-enabled apps, for example) and real-time testing (for testing social network apps). For developers who would like to try out the service, UI Scope is giving a 50% discount until the end of this month.
The company previously raised 5 million yen (about $53,800) from Movida Japan, and has acquired 120 developers and 2500 testers during the last six months. The video below will give you a better idea of how the service works.
Thanks to @david_z on Twitter for the error report! Much appreciated. ↩
In comparison to other countries around the world, Japan has a special affinity for camera apps. In fact, according to a recent report from Flurry Japanese mobile users are more likely to use photo apps than mobile users in any other country. We’ve written about a number of them over the past couple of months, and I thought we take her to expect look at a few of the best [1] ones today. So here they are, in no particular order: FX Camera ¶ One of the earliest entries in the Japan photo app space was FX Camera which launched way back in 2009. This app isn’t very flashy, but it has a solid repertoire of filters and effects would certainly come in handy on any mobile device. Since its launch a few years back it has accumulated more than 25 million downloads, certainly an impressive feat for its parent company Bit Cellar. See our recent review of FX Camera for more information. Download: iOS | Android Otaku Camera ¶ This app doesn’t have the sort of download counts that other apps on this list have achieved, but it was developed by one of Japan’s hottest startups, Tokyu Otaku Mode….
In comparison to other countries around the world, Japan has a special affinity for camera apps. In fact, according to a recent report from Flurry Japanese mobile users are more likely to use photo apps than mobile users in any other country.
We’ve written about a number of them over the past couple of months, and I thought we take her to expect look at a few of the best [1] ones today. So here they are, in no particular order:
One of the earliest entries in the Japan photo app space was FX Camera which launched way back in 2009. This app isn’t very flashy, but it has a solid repertoire of filters and effects would certainly come in handy on any mobile device. Since its launch a few years back it has accumulated more than 25 million downloads, certainly an impressive feat for its parent company Bit Cellar. See our recent review of FX Camera for more information.
This app doesn’t have the sort of download counts that other apps on this list have achieved, but it was developed by one of Japan’s hottest startups, Tokyu Otaku Mode. What Otaku Camera does is turn your pictures into an anime/manga style graphic. Last month the application surpassed the 1 million downloads mark, and we expect that with the company’s vast fan base that Otaku Camera will continue to grow. Check out our video demo below for more info about it how it works.
Just like in the West, Japan has more than a few food photography apps. Perhaps the most notable foodie photo app is SnapDish. The application was launched way back in May 2011, and since then it has catalogued more than 1.7 million pictures of food. Interestingly, it primarily encourages users to share pictures of food they’ve cooked themselves, as opposed to just snaps taken in a restaurant.
The company has aspirations on global markets too, and is already available in a variety of languages in addition to Japanese and English. For more information about the startup check out out interview with them from back in February.
Just a few weeks ago the Japanese photo application Papelook surpassed the 4 million downloads mark on iOS, launching a new Android app at that time as well. Papelook is not your typical photo application insofar as you’re not really going to be taking photos with it. But rather you can use it to combine and repurpose a lot of the photos that you’ve taken with other apps to build collages. I had a lot of fun testing this one, as you can see in the video demo below. The application is very much targeted at girls and it definitely falls into ‘Kawaii apps’ application category.
Line Camera took off very quickly since it was first released nearly a year ago. And with more than 20 million downloads since then, largely thanks to the wildly popular Line chat app as a distribution platform, this camera application hit number one in the photo category in 28 countries, mostly around Asia. The application allows for lots of fun photo decoration, following the same style as the popular stamps/stickers for which Line Corporation has become famous.
Like any list of this sort, this is a subjective ranking and I’m sure that there are many great camera apps from Japan that we have missed. If so, let us know! We’d be happy to hear from you. ↩
Japan’s second largest telco KDDI (TYO:9433) announced today that it would rebrand Lismo, its subscription mobile music service, to the ‘Kkbox’ effective in June. KDDI subsidized Taiwan-based Kkbox in December of 2010, and has been using the platform for its existing flat-rate music subscription services, Lismo unlmited and Utapass. For those not familiar with it, Kkbox is an on-demand music subscription service, founded in 2004 in Taiwan. KDDI acquired a majority share of its outstanding stock in 2010, and Taiwanese handset maker HTC took a 11.1% stake in 2011. The service is now operating in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, and has acquired more than 10 million users in those countries. More than 10 million songs are available for play, either using desktops, laptops, smartphones, or tablets. One of its more remarkable features is ‘Listen With,’ which allows you to share what you’re listening to with other users. With the rebranding, KDDI joins Asia’s largest music distribution network, providing more music titles not just to KDDI customers but also to mobile users on rival carriers NTT Docomo and Softbank Mobile. Competition is starting to heat up in the online music distribution space in Japan. DeNA launched Groovy a couple…
Japan’s second largest telco KDDI (TYO:9433) announced today that it would rebrand Lismo, its subscription mobile music service, to the ‘Kkbox’ effective in June.
KDDI subsidized Taiwan-based Kkbox in December of 2010, and has been using the platform for its existing flat-rate music subscription services, Lismo unlmited and Utapass. For those not familiar with it, Kkbox is an on-demand music subscription service, founded in 2004 in Taiwan. KDDI acquired a majority share of its outstanding stock in 2010, and Taiwanese handset maker HTC took a 11.1% stake in 2011.
The service is now operating in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, and has acquired more than 10 million users in those countries. More than 10 million songs are available for play, either using desktops, laptops, smartphones, or tablets. One of its more remarkable features is ‘Listen With,’ which allows you to share what you’re listening to with other users.
With the rebranding, KDDI joins Asia’s largest music distribution network, providing more music titles not just to KDDI customers but also to mobile users on rival carriers NTT Docomo and Softbank Mobile.
Kkbox app
Competition is starting to heat up in the online music distribution space in Japan. DeNA launched Groovy a couple of weeks ago, and Music Unlimited, Sony’s online music subscription service available in 18 countries worldwide, also recently reduced its subscription rate to 980 yen a month, the same price as Kkbox.
Global player Spotify is expected to launch in the Japanese market soon, as they have begun hiring in Tokyo. There are also other newcomers like Mironi as well.
Kyodo reports today that Japan has just surpassed the US as the biggest recorded music market in the world, with $4.3 billion in sales of CDs and music downloads. Interestingly, 80% of that figure was non-downloadable items like CDs and records, so there’s a lot of money just waiting to shift to the online space.
It will be interesting to see which of companies above can best position itself to capitalize on Japan’s love of music.
Japanese cuisine, especially Sushi, has attracted many health conscious eaters around the world. Sushi is obviously very popular here in Japan, but the cuisine is also way ahead of its food industry competitors in terms of technology. A sushi franchise called Mawashi Sushi Katsu has installed iPads in all of its seven restaurants for the purpose of taking orders. On the sushi counter, there’s an iPad for every two seats, and once orders are placed the sushi is delivered to the customer on the usual conveyor belt. The iPad is also used in the kitchen to educate employees and to improve service and productivity. Another kaiten zushi (roughly translated as “circulating sushi”) restaurant, Uobei in Shibuya, provides sushi for 105 yen per portion. The reduced cost comes as a result of installing touch panel devices, which support Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. You can see the order process in action in the video below. The sushi chain Kurazushi, with 285 stores in Japan (as of October 2011), is probably the most innovative of all sushi franchises. The Kurazushi smartphone app allows users to search for nearby restaurants, make reservations, and get coupons. Sushi orders are made using a touch panel…
Sushi iPad! (photo by ITpro)
Japanese cuisine, especially Sushi, has attracted many health conscious eaters around the world. Sushi is obviously very popular here in Japan, but the cuisine is also way ahead of its food industry competitors in terms of technology.
A sushi franchise called Mawashi Sushi Katsu has installed iPads in all of its seven restaurants for the purpose of taking orders. On the sushi counter, there’s an iPad for every two seats, and once orders are placed the sushi is delivered to the customer on the usual conveyor belt. The iPad is also used in the kitchen to educate employees and to improve service and productivity.
Another kaiten zushi (roughly translated as “circulating sushi”) restaurant, Uobei in Shibuya, provides sushi for 105 yen per portion. The reduced cost comes as a result of installing touch panel devices, which support Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. You can see the order process in action in the video below.
The sushi chain Kurazushi, with 285 stores in Japan (as of October 2011), is probably the most innovative of all sushi franchises. The Kurazushi smartphone app allows users to search for nearby restaurants, make reservations, and get coupons. Sushi orders are made using a touch panel device (just like other sushi chains) and the empty sushi plates are collected in a tableside bay. Plates are then automatically counted to calculate the bill, thus accelerating the paying process. There are also QR codes embedded on the sushi plates, which helps to keep track of how long the sushi has been circulating on conveyor belts.
After putting five plates into the tableside bay, customers can enjoy gacha. This is sort of a vending machine — and also the origin of gacha in social games — that gives out toys to kids. But it means that families are more likely to order by a multiple of five for their kids.
The video below shows a common device seen at sushi chains. It reads the IC tag embedded in plates to calculate bills. It’s pretty amazing, to be honest.
The very first conveyor-belt sushi appeared more than 55 years ago in Osaka. Since then much innovation has taken place, bringing a satisfying profit to sushi chains. Kurazushi alone had over 5 billion yen in profit as of year 2010, and if sushi tech keeps improving, I’m sure they’ll make even more in the future!
Japanese makers are well known for coming up with very unique inventions. Take for example, Shippo, a fluffy appendage that moves in accordance with your brain waves, or this musical fork that emits music while you eat. For creative types who come up with fun ideas like these, I expect there isn’t much time left for a love life. But thankfully some enthusiastic hackers in Japan have come up with a few new inventions that simulate a girlfriend’s affection [1]. The first device comes from some students at Tsukuba University. It looks like a regular coat, but if you strap on its special mechanical belt, and put on the included headset, you can experience the feeling of having a girlfriend running up and hugging you from behind. And while it’s not likely a product that will ever come to market, it’s good to see young enthusiastic engineers having fun like this, as you can see in the video below (h/t VS Media). Another awesome device that simulates a girlfriend’s affection is an unusual set of ‘head pat’ headphones. When worn, the headpiece has a piece on the top with rotates in an attempt to simulate intended a girlfriend patting you…
Japanese makers are well known for coming up with very unique inventions. Take for example, Shippo, a fluffy appendage that moves in accordance with your brain waves, or this musical fork that emits music while you eat.
For creative types who come up with fun ideas like these, I expect there isn’t much time left for a love life. But thankfully some enthusiastic hackers in Japan have come up with a few new inventions that simulate a girlfriend’s affection [1].
The first device comes from some students at Tsukuba University. It looks like a regular coat, but if you strap on its special mechanical belt, and put on the included headset, you can experience the feeling of having a girlfriend running up and hugging you from behind. And while it’s not likely a product that will ever come to market, it’s good to see young enthusiastic engineers having fun like this, as you can see in the video below (h/t VS Media).
Another awesome device that simulates a girlfriend’s affection is an unusual set of ‘head pat’ headphones. When worn, the headpiece has a piece on the top with rotates in an attempt to simulate intended a girlfriend patting you affectionately on the head. I’m not certain who the developers in this particular video are, but it looks like a student project as well.
Neither of these devices are especially practical, but I expect that the students who created them have bright futures ahead!
I don’t think these projects should be interpreted as any sort of perverted Japanese tech trend, but rather a great example of some very clever kids with a great sense of humor. ↩
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
