Many of us enjoy taking mobile snapshots every day, and here in Japan this tendency has helped photobook services, such as Mixi’s Nohana, to become popular among consumers. Thanks to advanced printing technologies and photo shooting techniques, now we have more ways than ever to enjoy our photos.
Tokyo-based startup O.N.A.R (apparently pronounced ‘One R’) recently launched a service called Niiice (apparently pronounced ‘Naaieece’) which lets you order photo tiles made from your smartphone snapshots.
In this space, we’ve already seen many startups enabling users to print their own original creations using Instagram photos (see Casetagram for iPhone cases and Snaptee for T-shirts). The company plans to target consumers who want to keep their memories in a physical form nearby. And these tiles do just that.
They come in small, medium, and large sizes. The small size has a magnet on the back, and the medium and large sizes come with a hook that will let you hang it on your wall. The original intention was for these tiles to be used for pet photos or to celebrate a birth. But they’ve found users are creating tiles as presents for parents or loved ones too.
The startup’s CEO Shunsuke Nakakariya says:
We hope our users can fill their walls with our tiles. But since people already have many small articles in their rooms, there might not be much space for new items. So we think users can start tile decoration using a small space on surface of a fridge, for example.
The startup targets users in the photobook market and hopes to catch up with Nohana in its number of total app downloads. Their service is currently available for the iOS, and an Android version will follow soon. Check out the picture below using our company logo!
While the Japanese mobile gaming space can be quite formulaic at times, I can’t help but like many of the titles that it produces. The puzzle/RPG approach that has worked so well for Puzzle & Dragons is also used in other games we have covered like Tetris Monsters or Puzzle Trooper [1]. And this week, the top iOS game in Japan continues this tradition, this time combining the familiar match–3 puzzle mechanic with horse racing of all things. Yes, say hello to Puzzle Derby. The game is developed by Net Dreamers, and it contains most of the familiar elements of Puzzle & Dragons and other games from that mold. You play a race as a sequence of rounds, matching colored orbs to boost past your opponents, playing to the strength of the horses in your deck. If you can pull off elaborate combos you stand a good chance of winning. There’s also a ‘gacha’ feature that lets you roll for new horse cards in the hopes of finding a rare one. Campaigns and events occur regularly as well, just as they do in Puzzle & Dragons. Initially launched on September 28, the game is only available in Japanese. It has…
While the Japanese mobile gaming space can be quite formulaic at times, I can’t help but like many of the titles that it produces. The puzzle/RPG approach that has worked so well for Puzzle & Dragons is also used in other games we have covered like Tetris Monsters or Puzzle Trooper[1]. And this week, the top iOS game in Japan continues this tradition, this time combining the familiar match–3 puzzle mechanic with horse racing of all things.
The game is developed by Net Dreamers, and it contains most of the familiar elements of Puzzle & Dragons and other games from that mold. You play a race as a sequence of rounds, matching colored orbs to boost past your opponents, playing to the strength of the horses in your deck. If you can pull off elaborate combos you stand a good chance of winning.
There’s also a ‘gacha’ feature that lets you roll for new horse cards in the hopes of finding a rare one. Campaigns and events occur regularly as well, just as they do in Puzzle & Dragons.
Initially launched on September 28, the game is only available in Japanese. It has fared well in the iOS sports category since its launch, but suddenly surged to become the top free game and overall app in Japan on Wednesday, where it currently sits right now.
Whether any these games are actually an RPG in the strict sense of the term is, of course, very debatable. ↩
Instead of brown lunch bags, Japanese kids typically bring bento boxes to school for lunch. And sometimes these bento boxes can be an outlet for mothers to unleash their creativity. You’ll can see how simply by searching for the term ‘Chara-ben’, or ‘Character bento’. There are a surprising number of these results that blend bento and cute characters, and many of them come from Cookpad, the largest recipe portal in Japan. Over on Cookpad, there are over 15,000 bento recipes available. Moms can browse to find their ideal bento, but there’s a simpler solution that does the work for them. The app is called ‘Kawaii Obento Kensaku’, or ‘cute bento search’. The app makes it quick and easy for busy moms to find bento recipes, letting users to search for cute bento recipes by color, character, or by ingredients. All of these curated recipes are hand-picked by the developer. Kawaii-Obento-Kensaku made its debut on a popular weekend TV show, and jumped to number one in the food category after it aired. On a related note, the same developer behind this bento app has created another interesting recipe app. ‘Cook Lawson’, showcases recipes from Cookpad and other recipe portals that uses…
Instead of brown lunch bags, Japanese kids typically bring bento boxes to school for lunch. And sometimes these bento boxes can be an outlet for mothers to unleash their creativity. You’ll can see how simply by searching for the term ‘Chara-ben’, or ‘Character bento’. There are a surprising number of these results that blend bento and cute characters, and many of them come from Cookpad, the largest recipe portal in Japan.
Over on Cookpad, there are over 15,000 bento recipes available. Moms can browse to find their ideal bento, but there’s a simpler solution that does the work for them. The app is called ‘Kawaii Obento Kensaku’, or ‘cute bento search’.
The app makes it quick and easy for busy moms to find bento recipes, letting users to search for cute bento recipes by color, character, or by ingredients. All of these curated recipes are hand-picked by the developer.
Kawaii-Obento-Kensaku made its debut on a popular weekend TV show, and jumped to number one in the food category after it aired.
On a related note, the same developer behind this bento app has created another interesting recipe app. ‘Cook Lawson’, showcases recipes from Cookpad and other recipe portals that uses foods available from the convenience store Lawson. The app was born out of a hackathon held by Lawson back in August of 2013.
See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. Here in Japan we’ve recently seen several efforts to connect startups and established companies, like Morning Pitch and Creww’s Ignition Night. In Japan, most incubation programs run by corporate venture capital initiatives aim to let their employees understand the startup culture and get a sense of the creative atmosphere. So in this way, established companies and startups can complement each other, and such efforts will likely be more frequent across the local startup scene. On a day two of B Dash Camp in Osaka last week, we heard more on this topic from Microsoft Japan evengelist Shinichiro Isago, NTT Docomo Ventures managing director Daisuke Miyoshi, and Dentsu [1] senior director Fumijiko Nakajima. This session was moderated by Shuji Honjo, visiting professor at Tama Graduate School of Business, Tokyo. According to Nakajima, Dentsu focuses on three factors when partnering with startups: ideas, entrepreneurship, and technology. Under a well-known project dubbed Neurowear, the company has developed several products like as Nekomimi and Miko, which were also exhibited at SXSW back in March. His team is currently exploring business models for these products. He…
Here in Japan we’ve recently seen several efforts to connect startups and established companies, like Morning Pitch and Creww’s Ignition Night. In Japan, most incubation programs run by corporate venture capital initiatives aim to let their employees understand the startup culture and get a sense of the creative atmosphere.
So in this way, established companies and startups can complement each other, and such efforts will likely be more frequent across the local startup scene. On a day two of B Dash Camp in Osaka last week, we heard more on this topic from Microsoft Japan evengelist Shinichiro Isago, NTT Docomo Ventures managing director Daisuke Miyoshi, and Dentsu [1] senior director Fumijiko Nakajima. This session was moderated by Shuji Honjo, visiting professor at Tama Graduate School of Business, Tokyo.
Dentsu’s Fumihiko Nakajima
According to Nakajima, Dentsu focuses on three factors when partnering with startups: ideas, entrepreneurship, and technology. Under a well-known project dubbed Neurowear, the company has developed several products like as Nekomimi and Miko, which were also exhibited at SXSW back in March. His team is currently exploring business models for these products.
He also shared some of the projects that the company is working on in collaboration with other companies:
Draffic: Developed in association with Japanese GIS company Zenrin Datacom, this system visualizes how many people were located in a specific time at a specific location. It is expected to be used by local governments to consider a disaster evacuation plan.
Asoberu-T: Developed in association with Japanese fashion retailer Beams, this solution lets users experience augmented reality on T-shirts. We featured this product back in July.
Social Marathon: Using RFID technology, this service collects time lapses of runners at a marathon and automatically publish their updates via social networks to more motivate them to keep running.
Dentsu Science Jam: This is a joint venture with Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage, aiming to create commercial services based on cutting-edge research in science.
draffic
According to Miyoshi, NTT Docomo Ventures aims for capital gain, but for startups, they expect to be seen as a gateway to all NTT group companies.
At a huge conglomerate like NTT Group, you may have no idea how to connect with a certain department. We will find the right person in the right department, corresponding to what you’re looking for, and link you up with them. We will work with you to explore how a department can make the most of your technology.
Since our company is a mobile carrier, we tend to be more constrained, so we will need more time to launch a new business than a typical startup does. By collaborating with startups which typically have lots of knowledge about new businesses, we would like to accelerate our internal entrepreneurial efforts as well.
One of the trends popular with our executives currently is the health care business. If you can bring us a health care solution, we can probably explore a potential business partnership.
For startups from outside Japan, they welcome any types of your approach. But they highly recommend you to visit them with a Japanese interpreter.
Microsoft’s Shinichiro Isago
Microsoft launched Microsoft Ventures from its US headquarters back in July. And Microsoft Japan is preparing to launch its Japanese counterpart, providing startups with support such as BizSpark, an acceleration program, and seed funding opportunities ranging from 5 million yen to 30 million yen (from $50,000 to $300,000).
In a response to a question about what kind of startups they can support, Microsoft’s Isago shared an interesting story:
In Saga prefecture, the local government decided to distribute our tablets to all high school students in the prefecture. … Our challenge is we have little variety of apps for Windows Tablets. So we really want to support startups which can provide a variety of apps for devices.
For startups, if you want to apply for Microsoft’s incubation program, you will be requested to submit a form in English, as they are a global company. Microsoft Japan can give you translation assistance, but they recommend you to personally write about what has motivated you to launch a startup, regardless of whether your English is good or not.
Moderator Honjo praised the the panelists for helping their respective companies connect with startups. In response, Microsoft’s Isago explained why.
It’s because big companies became weaker. In the past at many companies, smarter people tend to be assigned to high profit business. But for communicating with startups, you will need to be agile and responsive. Supporting startups will not help profits so much, but taking these actions with our future in mind is a good policy.
Disclosure: The author has a business relationship with Dentsu.↩
There have been many Japanese language learning software systems that have emerged over the years, but I think the most effective ones are the ones that take the SRS (spaced repetition system) approach. Systems like iKnow [1], and the iOS software Anki – these systems team to take the planning out of your study, and let you focus on learning the language. One of the more interesting of these is Cooori, which we saw takes third place in the recent SF Japan night startup competition here in Tokyo. Cooori is a web-based flash card system that caters to all levels of Japanese study, finding material that corresponds to JLPT testing, as well as popular curriculum like Minna no Nihongo. It also gives you the ability to create your own word lists if you choose. I gave Cooori a quick test using his trial, which is restricted to 25 words only, and I was encouraged to see that the system works well across all platforms including mobile. If you want to use Cooori, it doesn’t come super cheap at $17 per month, although if you are a student there is a discounted $11 per month rate [2]. Of course figuring out…
There have been many Japanese language learning software systems that have emerged over the years, but I think the most effective ones are the ones that take the SRS (spaced repetition system) approach. Systems like iKnow[1], and the iOS software Anki – these systems team to take the planning out of your study, and let you focus on learning the language. One of the more interesting of these is Cooori, which we saw takes third place in the recent SF Japan night startup competition here in Tokyo.
Cooori is a web-based flash card system that caters to all levels of Japanese study, finding material that corresponds to JLPT testing, as well as popular curriculum like Minna no Nihongo. It also gives you the ability to create your own word lists if you choose. I gave Cooori a quick test using his trial, which is restricted to 25 words only, and I was encouraged to see that the system works well across all platforms including mobile.
Cooori, pitched at SF Japan Night this month
If you want to use Cooori, it doesn’t come super cheap at $17 per month, although if you are a student there is a discounted $11 per month rate [2]. Of course figuring out an effective way to study language is quite difficult, so I think this will be money well spent for anyone looking to study Japanese seriously.
The flash card system looks very good, with audio available to listen to if you want to check to see how words and sentences are pronounced. One clever feature is the daily reminders function, which is something that I know I would really use, because it’s important to keep study consistent, rather than just checking in whenever you have time. (I always struggle with that!)
None of what Cooori does is completely new, I think. But as far as I can see so far, it’s appears to have nailed all the important things that an SRS should do [3]
If you’d like to give Cooori a try, you can test it out for free over on their website, Cooori.com. The company also has a handy Japanese-English dictionary for iOS and Android that you can download for free. Overall I think the service looks very promising, and I’m looking forward to spending more time with it.
I used to be a huge fan of iKnow, but their transition from a free service to a paid one was – shall we say – less than graceful, and not entirely respectful of their users’ past contributions. I won’t be going back. ↩
You’ll need to send in a picture of your student card to prove that you really are a student. There were also referral discounts, so that if you get your friends to sign up you get a cheaper rate (I’m shamelessly going to put my referral link here, although I haven’t quite decided if I’m going to subscribe yet). ↩
Although I’m still waiting on an SRS that lets me do word/sentence mining with a javascript bookmarklet or browser extension as I find new phrases on the web. It would be nice to be able to quickly add those to own my study list. ↩
Based on our original story in Japanese. Ietty is a Japanese startup that provides an alternative to conventional househunting. The startup announced yesterday it has raised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from I Mercury Capital, the investment arm of Japanese social network Mixi [1]. Since its launch back in February of 2012, the company has been developing its service in stealth mode. But it seems that, coinciding with these new funds raised, they are turning up at many showcasing opportunities like Graph Hack Award 2013. Ietty, the platform that the startup provides under its company name, aims to solve problems for both homeseekers and property agents. When you use conventional home finder sites, you need to enter lots of criteria to find something to fit your preference. But Ietty uses your Facebook user profile, and agents propose some available options via the platform based on criteria you have entered in advance. Property agents will pay a commission to the platform on a performance basis, so they have no risk in signing up. The platform was launched back in June in beta, and has partnered with eight different agents to date. The startup’s CEO Taihei Ogawa explained what makes the platform…
Ietty is a Japanese startup that provides an alternative to conventional househunting. The startup announced yesterday it has raised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from I Mercury Capital, the investment arm of Japanese social network Mixi[1]. Since its launch back in February of 2012, the company has been developing its service in stealth mode. But it seems that, coinciding with these new funds raised, they are turning up at many showcasing opportunities like Graph Hack Award 2013.
Ietty, the platform that the startup provides under its company name, aims to solve problems for both homeseekers and property agents. When you use conventional home finder sites, you need to enter lots of criteria to find something to fit your preference. But Ietty uses your Facebook user profile, and agents propose some available options via the platform based on criteria you have entered in advance.
Property agents will pay a commission to the platform on a performance basis, so they have no risk in signing up. The platform was launched back in June in beta, and has partnered with eight different agents to date. The startup’s CEO Taihei Ogawa explained what makes the platform different from conventional services.
The property agent business connects homeseekers and landlords through a property. For users, even if you can find no property that fits your preference, we can help you connect to appropriate agents likely to introduce a good one for your search.
From an agent’s perspective, the more users the platform has, the more likely an agent is to close deals. For the users who receive no manual contact from agents, the platform has a recommendation engine that automatically proposes a set of available apartments based on your preference.
Ietty founder/CEO Taihei Ogawa
Prior to launching the platform, the startup’s CEO Ogawa previously worked at Sumitomo Realty & Development, a well-established Japanese property agents. When he determined to launch a startup, he started studying about business models in the IT industry and participated in Incubate Camp, the program run by Japanese startup incubator Incubate Fund. Ogawa explains:
I’ve never seen any other industry where customer satisfaction so extremely low. That’s why this market is worth disrupting. … By boosting our business, I believe the market can become more competitive and more transparent in how it presents information to consumers.
It will be interesting to see how this startup will might evolve such an old-fashioned industry, where consumers have been paying high incidental expenses for house relocation.
The company’s name comes from the Japanese word for home ‘ie’, which they are apparenty turning into an adjective somehow.↩
Junya Mori
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
