Line chat app users can now enjoy unique stamps from world famous modern artist Takashi Murakami. The stamps were created to commemorate the release of the movie Mememe-no-kurage, a film which saw Murakami assume the role of director for the very first time.
As I’ve written in a past article, stamps are often cited to as the reason behind chat apps’ huge success to date, especially in Asia. Silicon Valley’s Path released original stickers within its app at beginning of March, a move that makes sense given that the company is eager to expand to the Japanese market (having also hired a business development person here).
Line provides both free stamps and premium stamps which cost about 170 yen (about $1.80) for a set of 40. The platform sells over 300 million yen (about $3,126,000) worth of stamps per month. That works out to about about 60,000 downloads of premium stamps a day.
So who is actually buying these stamps? According to a survey conducted by Ceres, its people in their 30s who are the most frequent buyers with one in four people purchasing stamps. This is followed by users in their 20s at 21.8%. Only 10% of teenagers and people over the age of 50 are paying for stamps.
The survey also revealed that official character stamps by corporate brands are very popular with 61% of respondents saying they have downloaded such stamps. On April 2nd, Line kicked off its new campaign where stamps could be redeemed for free after buying certain products. The very first product on board is a Japanese blend tea by Coca Cola Japan. The company worked in collaboration with a major publisher with its hit comic series as GTO and Moteki.
For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
At the Startup Asia conference today in Singapore, Cinnamon – a startup led by CEO Miku Hirano – pitched a new photo app called ‘Seconds.’ I recently had a chance to meet with Miku, who gave me a preview of the soon-to-be-released app. To be launched first on the Android platform, she says that she would like Seconds to replace your native camera app, with private photo sharing features targeting the Southeast Asia market to start. The app is is simple and easy to use. You just take a photo, and choose your desired album for upload. Photos added are immediately visible to members who have access to that album, and those members can also upload pictures as well. You can also create any number of albums, which differ depending on who has access – it could be your family, friends, or your significant other. With photos being automatically uploaded, you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures if you misplace your phone or have it stolen. Cinnamon plans to release the app first in Thailand, says Miku, a country known for its love of photo sharing. They’re targeting the huge population of Southeast Asia because private sharing is…
At the Startup Asia conference today in Singapore, Cinnamon – a startup led by CEO Miku Hirano – pitched a new photo app called ‘Seconds.’ I recently had a chance to meet with Miku, who gave me a preview of the soon-to-be-released app. To be launched first on the Android platform, she says that she would like Seconds to replace your native camera app, with private photo sharing features targeting the Southeast Asia market to start.
The app is is simple and easy to use. You just take a photo, and choose your desired album for upload. Photos added are immediately visible to members who have access to that album, and those members can also upload pictures as well.
Cinnamon CEO Miku Hirano
You can also create any number of albums, which differ depending on who has access – it could be your family, friends, or your significant other. With photos being automatically uploaded, you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures if you misplace your phone or have it stolen.
Cinnamon plans to release the app first in Thailand, says Miku, a country known for its love of photo sharing. They’re targeting the huge population of Southeast Asia because private sharing is a little bit more popular in Asian regions. They hope that more mature mobile markets like Japan, China, and Korea will help make it profitable.
Cinnamon was founded in Singapore back in October, and received seed funding December from CyberAgent Ventures and other angel investors. Currently the company has a headcount of like 10 people including its president at Hajime Hotta.
There are many ways in which they hope they can monetize Seconds, likely with premium features or with ads. If they go for premium model would mean extra features like storage, filters, decoration, or Facebook sync.
Tomorrow is day two of Startup Asia, so it will be interesting to see how Cinnamon fares in the field of 20 Asian startups. I had the pleasure of being a part of the last Startup Asia event in Jakarta last year, where the winner of the startup event was Moso, the sole Japanese entry in the competition.
Tokyo-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which curates and shares content and news about Japanese anime and manga culture, recently announced a syndication deal with 13 internet news sites in Japan and around the world. The international partners are as follows: Cheezburger (Cheezburger Inc., USA) Bahamut (a video game review site from Oneup Network Corporation, Taiwan) anime.mx (an anime news site in Mexico) RetornoAnime (Anime news for Mexico) Some of the notable Japanese media partners added to Tokyo Otaku Mode’s repertoire of syndication sources from which it translates news are: Anime.excite Anime Anime Netlab Kai-You.net Fashion Headline Now with over 11 million Facebook fans, many people wondered how Tokyo Otaku Mode might monetize its rapidly growing fan base. When I spoke to the startups co-founder Nao Kodaka back in February, he explained that one way would be try to funnel its Facebook traffic onto its main website (otakumode.com) which could then be monetized with advertising. So now with more quality incoming content, and with an extended reach thanks to syndication deals, TOM has made positive steps towards this goal. The company says in its announcement that it hopes to translate articles into more languages in the future, and ostensibly Spanish is…
Tokyo-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which curates and shares content and news about Japanese anime and manga culture, recently announced a syndication deal with 13 internet news sites in Japan and around the world. The international partners are as follows:
Now with over 11 million Facebook fans, many people wondered how Tokyo Otaku Mode might monetize its rapidly growing fan base. When I spoke to the startups co-founder Nao Kodaka back in February, he explained that one way would be try to funnel its Facebook traffic onto its main website (otakumode.com) which could then be monetized with advertising. So now with more quality incoming content, and with an extended reach thanks to syndication deals, TOM has made positive steps towards this goal.
The company says in its announcement that it hopes to translate articles into more languages in the future, and ostensibly Spanish is a priority given the deals with Mexican publishers noted above.
The startup also recently partnered with convenience store chain Lawson to help promote aware of the store’s brand around Asia and the rest of the world. They have established a special promotion page featuring characters that introduce Lawson’s products.
Stay tuned for more from Otaku Mode, as an e-commerce channel is expected to be just around the corner for the startup. If you’d like to sign up to be notified when it opens, head over to otakumode.com/shop.
This article is based on an interview published on our Japanese-language site (see part one and two). It has been partially modified for our global audience. Lancers, CrowdWorks Employment in Japan has traditionally been a cradle-to-grave sort of system, but given modern day economic challenges, many people are facing difficulties. Many workers are faced with finding alternatives when the notion of a full-time job doesn’t work out. Recent government statistics show that 94% of 4.5 million Japanese companies only have a single office. Larger companies with more than 10 offices across multiple locations only account for 0.4% of all Japanese business. But in which category of business do most employees fall under? 31% of the entire national workforce belongs to the 0.4% of big companies. Out of the entire Japanese workforce of 62.3 million people, 55 million of those are employed by someone else, and 7 million people are self-employed or working with their family businesses [1]. These figures show that many workers are concentrated among a very small number of big companies here in Japan. Given that this distribution will likely not change soon, how can Japanese workers prepare for what will happen to the national economy in the future? Being a so-called ‘crowdsourced’ worker…
This article is based on an interview published on our Japanese-language site (see part one and two). It has been partially modified for our global audience.
Lancers, CrowdWorks
Employment in Japan has traditionally been a cradle-to-grave sort of system, but given modern day economic challenges, many people are facing difficulties. Many workers are faced with finding alternatives when the notion of a full-time job doesn’t work out.
Recent government statistics show that 94% of 4.5 million Japanese companies only have a single office. Larger companies with more than 10 offices across multiple locations only account for 0.4% of all Japanese business.
But in which category of business do most employees fall under? 31% of the entire national workforce belongs to the 0.4% of big companies. Out of the entire Japanese workforce of 62.3 million people, 55 million of those are employed by someone else, and 7 million people are self-employed or working with their family businesses [1].
These figures show that many workers are concentrated among a very small number of big companies here in Japan. Given that this distribution will likely not change soon, how can Japanese workers prepare for what will happen to the national economy in the future?
Being a so-called ‘crowdsourced’ worker is an alternative solution when it comes to finding employment. Crowdsourcing (in the context of this discussion) is a concept that matches task requests with individuals who can do the work. The most notable examples of this process are US-based services oDesk and Elance. These days some people can even make a living from such jobs.
Mr. Akiyoshi says that with his Lancers service, some workers can earn as much as 7 or 8 million yen ($70,000 to $80,000).
The traditional concept of crowdsourcing has been that someone in a remote location helps you finish minor tasks at an affordable rate. But recently platforms like Lancers are being used for more, serving as a primary income stream for some. Mr. Akiyoshi shared a few key indicators from his platform:
The platform is home to 120,000 freelancers from all around Japan.
1,000 of those users are earning about 50,000 yen (approximately $500) a month
70% of users reside in suburban areas or countryside.
Some people make more than 3 million yen (about $30,000) using the platform. Needless to say, that’s enough to make a living.
There are now about 10,000 tasks listed on the platform, three times the amount of tasks listed last year.
Akiyoshi adds:
We saw the rapid growth since 2011. Our operations have expanded from two people in 2008, to 11 people in 2011, to the 30-person team we have now.
Helping people work regardless of geographical location is the startup’s concept. And true to that notion, Lancer itself is based in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Kamakura, where they can concentrate more on the service development.
Recently they are seeing a decent number of task proposals including jobs like copywriting, proposal writing, web design, or sales outsourcing.
With the platform, Akiyoshi hopes to contribute to creating a world where people can find good work and better living.
CrowdWorks: An opportunity to work and live better ¶
CrowdWorks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida
CrowdWorks is another key player in this field, and its website features many voices from people who use the platform. When I asked CrowdWorks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida if crowdsourced work has become a mainstream working style, he answered me by relating the following story from a housewife who lives in Tokushima Prefecture and uses their app.
I’m glad to see a world I’ve never seen before, getting in touch with the interests of the younger generation. I’m also amazed that the platform provides us with equal accessibility to tasks regardless of where we live. I retired and moved to the countryside but the platform gives me the great opportunity to keep working at home.
For most people, their daily work is more than just earning money. It’s also a means of giving your life a sense of purpose. Crowdsourcing can help them find such a purpose in their lives as well.
Every worker has a preferred style for working. And CEO Yoshida says that freelancers can pursue a sort of career optimization in finding the projects that best suit their needs and style.
Take for example, PC operating systems. These days we have many choices ranging from licensed systems (like Windows or Mac) to open source (Linux) systems. Likewise, people employed at governmental offices or big companies can be seen as a ‘licensed’ way of working. What we’re proposing is to develop an open source way of working. Some people use the platform to finding a side job, and others use it to making a living. It’s meaningless to try to figure out which is the better route, but what’s important is give people more options, more ways to work.
The service was launched in March of 2012, and has acquired more than 5,000 corporate clients who are posting jobs on the platform. So far projects worth more than $12 million have been matched in the year since the launch. Back in last October, Crowdworks raised a total amount of $3.75 million (300 million yen) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Digital Garage, and Suneight Investment, with aiming to expand their business in the South East Asian region.
Working styles changed after the 2011 earthquake
We’ve asked the both startups about why the Japanese crowdsourcing market has been on an upswing during the last few years. Both Akiyoshi and Yoshida say that it appears to have stemmed from the tragic 2011 earthquake. That disaster also encouraged several Japanese crowdfunding sites to launch as well.
Akiyoshi pointed out that the disaster might have triggered the recent boom in the crowdsourcing market. It has brought us newly-coined phrases like ‘nomad working,’ and it has prompted many companies to permit their employees to work from home.
These crowdsourcing startups are presenting a fascinating alternative to conventional working styles in Japan, and in the process they are creating an employment ecosystem that’s helping many individual workers face the challenges of our current economy.
Line Corporation pushed an update to its Wind Runner iPhone game on Tuesday, and since then the title has been top free iOS app many countries around Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and its home market of Japan. The game is a side scrolling platform which was well received upon its release back in mid-February [1]. You can check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the game plays. The game is promoted through the company’s popular Line chat application, which is the main reason why it has seen this sort of success. To date, the application has 130 million+ downloads, the majority of which are in the Asia region. Wind Runner is also doing reasonably well on Android, ranked as the number two app overall in Taiwan and Singapore, and number four overall in Thailand and Japan. It looks as though Line Corporation’s strategy of releasing television commercials in local markets is working really well. The company recently surpassed 10 million downloads in Spain, and it has been running a commercial there too. As you might expect, Wind Runner is doing well there also, ranked as the sixth most popular free…
Line Corporation pushed an update to its Wind Runner iPhone game on Tuesday, and since then the title has been top free iOS app many countries around Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and its home market of Japan. The game is a side scrolling platform which was well received upon its release back in mid-February [1]. You can check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the game plays.
The game is promoted through the company’s popular Line chat application, which is the main reason why it has seen this sort of success. To date, the application has 130 million+ downloads, the majority of which are in the Asia region. Wind Runner is also doing reasonably well on Android, ranked as the number two app overall in Taiwan and Singapore, and number four overall in Thailand and Japan.
It looks as though Line Corporation’s strategy of releasing television commercials in local markets is working really well. The company recently surpassed 10 million downloads in Spain, and it has been running a commercial there too. As you might expect, Wind Runner is doing well there also, ranked as the sixth most popular free iOS app. Spain the first market outside of Asia where Line Corporation has seen significant success. But you can expect more countries to follow, particularly the US market later this year.
One country where Wind Runner hasn’t really succeeded yet is South Korea, where rival chat platform Kakaotalk dominates in place of Line. Interestingly, Kakaotalk has been winning some ground in Japan, passing the 10 million downloads mark back on March 24.
For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Wind Runner, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
Note that NHN Japan recently rebranded itself as ‘Line Corporation.’ ↩
As we reported back in February, NTT Docomo launched a new startup fund worth 10 billion yen (about $100 million), along with an incubation program with 500 Startups and Japan’s B Dash Ventures. Today, the telco-backed investment arm unveiled the first selection of companies for the fund: tech news media company Iid and CRM solution developer Repica. Iid was founded back in 2000 as a subsidiary of internet research company IRI. That company has been running 23 web media entities across 16 different genres, including the notable tech news site RBBToday.com. The company also has developed an e-commerce site solution called Marble ASP as well. With the new funds, the company expects to intensify further mobile optimization of these news sites for its e-commerce platform. IID’s sharehoders include Globis Capital Partners, Inspire Investment, Itochu Technology Ventures, and Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings. Repica was founded in 2006 by former executives at Japanese mobile service giant Cybird Holdings. The company provides merchants with several customer-facing white-label CRM solutions such as a customer reward system, a gift coupon system, and a mobile-optimized e-mail distribution system. The company’s subsidiary Arara is known for running restaurant clipping app called Gugulog, as well as a smartphone app…
Today, the telco-backed investment arm unveiled the first selection of companies for the fund: tech news media company Iid and CRM solution developer Repica.
IID’s RBBToday.com
Iid was founded back in 2000 as a subsidiary of internet research company IRI. That company has been running 23 web media entities across 16 different genres, including the notable tech news site RBBToday.com. The company also has developed an e-commerce site solution called Marble ASP as well. With the new funds, the company expects to intensify further mobile optimization of these news sites for its e-commerce platform.
Repica was founded in 2006 by former executives at Japanese mobile service giant Cybird Holdings. The company provides merchants with several customer-facing white-label CRM solutions such as a customer reward system, a gift coupon system, and a mobile-optimized e-mail distribution system. The company’s subsidiary Arara is known for running restaurant clipping app called Gugulog, as well as a smartphone app review site called Appli-sommelier.
Repica raised 113.4 million yen, hoping to integrate its apps and services on smartphone devices, and to intensify its global business expansion.
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
As we 
