Cinnamon was launched back in 2012, led by Miku Hirano who previously work with Naked Technology, which was acquired by Mixi in 2011. The company securing seed funding from CyberAgent Ventures and several angel investors. Our readers may recall that the company pitched its Seconds app at Startup Asia Jakarta last April.
The app appears to be doing well with over 200,000 downloads across the Asia region, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore, so I’m curious why they are moving on to a new app. I had a chance to speak with the company’s co-founder and CEO Miku Hirano to find out more.
Cinnamon CEO Miku Hirano
We’ve been looking at our Seconds users for almost an year since launch, and we’ve learned how they typically behave. We target women around the age of 25 in the South East Asian region, and we found that they are using our app not for saving memories in photos, but rather for real-time communication. For them, they can’t be bothered to key in texts when uploading a photo, so our new app allows you to add a short audio clip with the app. That’s PicChat.
I thought the Seconds app was a completed product to share photos among intimate friends. But it seems that Cinnamon has been treating it as a test marketing process for the next step. Considering the Seconds app has acquired more than 200,000 users to date, we can expect the new app to have a more rapid user expansion since based on user feedback.
In this space, I think Vietnam and Korea saturated by Korean apps like Kakao Talk. So we expect to take over Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand with the new app. To help in user acquisition, we hired a number of students from top Asian universities as interns. We believe in their potential in terms of their viral marketing skills.
As we’ve learned from China’s ClassBox, which reached 1 million downloads its first month, a viral effect can happen in a student network. It could be interesting to see if Cinnamon can win the interest of the younger generation in this way.
Cinnamon will shut down the Seconds app in the future and shift all their resources to their PicChat app. We understand that they will keep focusing on user acquisition this year, and will start monetization by selling stickers and ads after 2015.
See the original article in Japanese Viibar, startup which operates a crowdsourcing platform specializing in video production raised approximately 300 million yen in total ($3 million) from Globis Capital Partners and GREE Ventures. Further details were not disclosed. Viibar was founded in April of 2013, with the aim of offering high-quality video for affordable prices, matching creators (like video directors and videographers) with clients. According to Viibar CEO, Yuta Kamisaka, a few hundred creators have been already registered on Viibar. Since last year, the company has utilized crowdsourcing to outsource work from a number of clients, including Rakuten and Mixi. The short video below was created for Mixi. Kamisaka started his first career at a video-production company that makes TV and video ads. He gained some experience in video production, worked on the marketing team at Rakuten, and then he founded Viibar. He participated Open Network Lab’s incubation program as part of its seventh batch, where Viibar won The Best Team Award on demo day. Shogo Kawada, a co-founder of DeNA and an angel investor, has also joined the team. Currently Japan’s crowdsourcing platforms can be roughly divided into two types. One type has all processes completed within the platform…
Viibar, startup which operates a crowdsourcing platform specializing in video production raised approximately 300 million yen in total ($3 million) from Globis Capital Partners and GREE Ventures. Further details were not disclosed.
Viibar was founded in April of 2013, with the aim of offering high-quality video for affordable prices, matching creators (like video directors and videographers) with clients. According to Viibar CEO, Yuta Kamisaka, a few hundred creators have been already registered on Viibar. Since last year, the company has utilized crowdsourcing to outsource work from a number of clients, including Rakuten and Mixi. The short video below was created for Mixi.
Kamisaka started his first career at a video-production company that makes TV and video ads. He gained some experience in video production, worked on the marketing team at Rakuten, and then he founded Viibar.
He participated Open Network Lab’s incubation program as part of its seventh batch, where Viibar won The Best Team Award on demo day. Shogo Kawada, a co-founder of DeNA and an angel investor, has also joined the team.
Currently Japan’s crowdsourcing platforms can be roughly divided into two types. One type has all processes completed within the platform – such as with Lancers and Crowdworks. The other type has the company more actively involved in the process, as with Mugenup or Kaizen. Viibar’s position is closer to the latter.
We spoke to Kamisaka about how the company handles video production.
ーーThe process is usually so complicated that it would be difficult leaving everything up to just the client and the creator. Mugenup solved the problem by dividing a whole process into small parts. How will Viibar take on the problem?
First, we ask clients to present an outline of the video. After signing a non-disclosure agreement, video directors on our platform who are interested in joining the project participate in the assignment and pitch their work. After creators are selected, we build a production platform on cloud.
On the website, clients can see profiles and past work of video directors and select one based on that information.
ーーIsn’t it difficult to work on a project when there is just direct communication between a client and a creator?
Right. So we also have product managers who help facilitate the process. A client’s expectation of quality is usually pretty high, and sometimes the creator has to do some processes again. By as we learn with every project, that will be reflected in our operations and systems.
ーーHow many members do you have on the team?
We have three part-time product managers. We expect one manager can support 10 to 20 clients.
The video market is growing fast, as YouTube’s business expands. There is great potential for Viibar to grow.
ーーWhat type of order do you get the most? And how much does it usually cost?
For animation videos, around 300,000 yen ($3000), and for live-action video, 600,000 yen ($6000) would be the most common price. The types of video are wide-rangng, but YouTube ads and short video ads for companies’ websites that introduce their product or service are increasing.
Videomaking has typically been a high-cost service. But with more video consumtion online, the need for affordable video clips is going up. On my own personal project dropout, almost 90 percent of the users watch the videos on their smartphone. This device shift is significant.
If it costs a few thousands dollars to make a video, it won’t be affordable for most people. But what if that price drops to a few hundreds dollars? Then it could drive an expansion of quality video media. To that end, I think there’s much potential to be found in video-crowdsourcing.
People often look at GungHo Online Entertainment’s hit game Puzzle & Dragons and wonder why it’s such a strong mobile title. I’ve already written much about exactly why I like it personally, but there are some other reasons that I think have really contributed to its success here in Japan. I started thinking about this recently when I saw someone complaining about Dungeon Keeper on Twitter, and how it kicks you out of the game when you lose a connection [1]. Lots of games require persistent connections, and that’s certainly fine provided your day doesn’t take you through a maze of underground subway tunnels like many of us who live in urban centers such as Tokyo. But it really got me thinking about Puzzle & Dragons, and how and where I have been playing it over the past year or so. What’s remarkable about the game is not just that it doesn’t require a persistent connection, but that it only really requires a sporadic connection. During my own subway commute here in Tokyo, there are certain blind spots on my route where I usually can’t get a network connection. And because I’ve traveled that route so often, I can usually…
People often look at GungHo Online Entertainment’s hit game Puzzle & Dragons and wonder why it’s such a strong mobile title. I’ve already written much about exactly why I like it personally, but there are some other reasons that I think have really contributed to its success here in Japan.
I started thinking about this recently when I saw someone complaining about Dungeon Keeper on Twitter, and how it kicks you out of the game when you lose a connection [1]. Lots of games require persistent connections, and that’s certainly fine provided your day doesn’t take you through a maze of underground subway tunnels like many of us who live in urban centers such as Tokyo.
But it really got me thinking about Puzzle & Dragons, and how and where I have been playing it over the past year or so. What’s remarkable about the game is not just that it doesn’t require a persistent connection, but that it only really requires a sporadic connection.
During my own subway commute here in Tokyo, there are certain blind spots on my route where I usually can’t get a network connection. And because I’ve traveled that route so often, I can usually anticipate when I’ll lose my connection and when I’ll get it back [2]. P&D will always handle these drops like a champ. The actual dungeons (or rounds/levels) don’t need a connection at connection at all. So if you suddenly go offline, you won’t even realize it until you finish the level and the data tries to sync. So in reality, the game only really needs a connection during times when it phones home to sync data, such as:
The initial start screen
Entering or exiting a dungeon
Powering up or evolving a monster
If you happen to run into network issues during those times, you’ll typically see a ‘Connecting’ message, followed by either a ‘retry’ option or an error message (see below).
So very often I’ll find myself beginning a dungeon before going through a long underground stretch that has no signal, just so that I have something to do during that blacked out period. You’ve no doubt done something similar at some point, perhaps downloading all your podcasts or syncing an RSS reader before a flight.
The end result for P&D is a pretty frustration-free gaming experience, far removed from the likes of Dungeon Keeper mentioned above. And of course, a game that does not need a persistent connection is not unique to by any means, but I think the lesson to be learned here is that you want to make a game that’s a mainstream hit in the Japan market (or for a similar urban population with developed public transport), you need to make sure it doesn’t frustrate users when they suddenly lose a connection.
Thumbs up, but no more than necessary
I probably don’t need to point out that in addition to handling sporadic connections really well, P&D is a really easy game to play with one hand – again, a great advantage for Japan’s legions of train commuters who stand hanging one-armed from a strap during rush hours. You only really need your thumb to play, and since all the puzzle movement is in the lower half of the screen, you never find yourself reaching uncomfortably to the top half during gameplay (see lower left). No fingers necessary!
When Apple rolled out Control Center with iOS 7, it did lead to some unexpected problems for P&D players however (and probably many other games too). If you’ve played the game for any length of time, you’ll notice that sometimes when you try to bring an orb up from the very bottom row, you will sometimes inadvertently launch Command Center. It’s a huge annoyance (see lower right), and as much as I love the convenience of Command Center, I’m sure the folks at GungHo we’re not too pleased when it came out.
But overall, Puzzle & Dragons is still a pretty amazing little mobile game, one that I regularly see people playing during their commute – provided that I don’t have my head down playing it myself.
Command Center sometimes gets in the way :(
I have not confirmed whether the game actually does this or not, but given that it came from Richard Gaywood, a super smart dude from TUAW (where I once briefly blogged), I’m taking this as a certainty. ↩
Usually my network ‘blind spot’ is between Omotesando and Futakotamagawa. Coverage has improved much over the years, thankfully. I should also point out that this is also a great game if you’re annoyed by the tunnels on the bullet train! ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese internet company Adways (TSE:2489) announced yesterday that it has invested in mobile gaming developer Gumi (also from Japan), taking a 1.0% stake. Adways provides a reward-based ad platform for mobile app developers (in Japan and around the world) called AppDriver. Gumi is seeing good results in user acquisition, not only for its own game titles but also with Brave Frontier, a game developed by its subsidiary Alim. It is said that the app has acquired more than 2 million users in Japan as well as a million users from around the rest of the world. Through this investment, Adways expects to create a synergy with Gumi to expand its business in global mobile markets. Adways also recently announced it has partnered with InMovi Japan and five Japanese startups providing crowdsourcing services, helping AppDriver users improve and promote their apps using these services for free or at discounted rates.
Japanese internet company Adways (TSE:2489) announced yesterday that it has invested in mobile gaming developer Gumi (also from Japan), taking a 1.0% stake.
Adways provides a reward-based ad platform for mobile app developers (in Japan and around the world) called AppDriver. Gumi is seeing good results in user acquisition, not only for its own game titles but also with Brave Frontier, a game developed by its subsidiary Alim. It is said that the app has acquired more than 2 million users in Japan as well as a million users from around the rest of the world. Through this investment, Adways expects to create a synergy with Gumi to expand its business in global mobile markets.
Adways also recently announced it has partnered with InMovi Japan and five Japanese startups providing crowdsourcing services, helping AppDriver users improve and promote their apps using these services for free or at discounted rates.
Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today that it has raised 1.45 billion yen (approximately $14.3 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), Global Brain, Itochu Technology Ventures, Plus (an office stationary company), GMO Venture Partners, and Mixi. Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,600 printing facilities across Japan (as of November of 2013). Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders. According to Nikkei Business, Raksul will use the funds raised this time to prepare for global service operations, and to launch a new service that allows merchants to distribute their flyers via newspapers to consumers for affordable rates. By making the most of the internet and removing middleman costs, their flyer distribution service gives local merchants a better chance to promote their services for less than 10% of the price usually seen in this sector. Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and Anri.
Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,600 printing facilities across Japan (as of November of 2013). Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders.
According to Nikkei Business, Raksul will use the funds raised this time to prepare for global service operations, and to launch a new service that allows merchants to distribute their flyers via newspapers to consumers for affordable rates. By making the most of the internet and removing middleman costs, their flyer distribution service gives local merchants a better chance to promote their services for less than 10% of the price usually seen in this sector.
Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and Anri.
See the original article in Japanese Sekai Lab, a company under Singapore-based music/game company Monstar Lab, has launched a crowdsourcing platform. It lets companies in Japan find engineers from all around the world, but still using Japanese. With the rapid spread of smartphones in Japan, more and more app developers are needed these days. Sekai Lab COO Ikkei Okuma thought that the company could provide a solution to match Japanese companies with skilled engineers in Asian countries such as China and Vietnam. Okuma explains: There are many great engineers in Asia. But there is no platform in Japanese to match them with companies in Japan, making it very difficult for companies to outsource their work. Workers registered on most crowdsourcing platforms are individuals, which makes it hard to outsource a big project using crowdsourcing platforms. Sekai Lab aims to address these issues. The cost of human resources on Sekai Lab are relatively low. And by providing Asian engineers with high skill sets, the company hopes to alleviate the shortage of engineers currently plaguing Japan. So how does it work? Development processes are executed through communication between the developer team and the company that outsourced the work. And depending on the…
Sekai Lab, a company under Singapore-based music/game company Monstar Lab, has launched a crowdsourcing platform. It lets companies in Japan find engineers from all around the world, but still using Japanese.
With the rapid spread of smartphones in Japan, more and more app developers are needed these days. Sekai Lab COO Ikkei Okuma thought that the company could provide a solution to match Japanese companies with skilled engineers in Asian countries such as China and Vietnam. Okuma explains:
There are many great engineers in Asia. But there is no platform in Japanese to match them with companies in Japan, making it very difficult for companies to outsource their work. Workers registered on most crowdsourcing platforms are individuals, which makes it hard to outsource a big project using crowdsourcing platforms. Sekai Lab aims to address these issues.
The cost of human resources on Sekai Lab are relatively low. And by providing Asian engineers with high skill sets, the company hopes to alleviate the shortage of engineers currently plaguing Japan.
So how does it work? Development processes are executed through communication between the developer team and the company that outsourced the work. And depending on the project, Monstar Lab can provide support as well.
On the Sekai Lab website, you can find engineers across many different categories, such as the type of app required, cost, and the past experience of the team.
Okuma also told us a little about how they screen teams for registration.
For the time being, we only register companies who have an office in Japan, in addition to their developer base outside Japan. We meet the team face-to-face and confirm their past experience. We gather information about the team leader and put it on our website.
In Japan, crowdsourcing service is getting lots of attention these days, with Lancers and Crowdworks showing remarkable growth. Can crowdsourcing beyond Japan’s borders be successful as well? We’ll keep watching Sekai Lab, so stay tuned.
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Rick Martin
Junya Mori
