Our readers may recall that a couple of Japanese mobile payment solutions recently struck partnerships with tablet-based register apps. And now there’s another announcement in this space.
Tokyo-based Freee, the startup behind the Cloud-based accounting app of the same name, announced yesterday that it has partnered with Recruit Lifestyle. Freee will integrate with Recruit Lifestyle’s tablet-based register app AirRegi in order to automate invoicing and accounting at retail stores, thus cutting out much time-consuming work.
Since its launch back in November, AirRegi has acquired more than 35,000 merchants across Japan (as of March 18th, 2014). Freee has more than 60,000 user accounts, including freelancers, startups, and SMEs. The company recently introduced an iOS app aiming to help their users finish accounting tasks without having to spend so much time in front of a desktop terminal.
Yesterday, the popular read-it-later [1] app Pocket launched in six new languages yesterday, adding support for Japanese, German, Italian, Russian, French, and Spanish. As you can see in Pocket’s graphic below, those languages account for 22 percent of the services users, with Japanese comprising 5% of Pocket users. The company adds: Not only is the app fully-translated across our platform for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish, we’ve also made significant improvements to Article View accuracy for these languages. On our Japanese site, we’ve already been including the Pocket button for our users for some time. For me personally, Pocket is an application that I use daily, primarily because of it’s great integration with other apps and services. Pocket was formerly called ‘Read it Later’ as you may recall. ↩
Yesterday, the popular read-it-later [1] app Pocket launched in six new languages yesterday, adding support for Japanese, German, Italian, Russian, French, and Spanish. As you can see in Pocket’s graphic below, those languages account for 22 percent of the services users, with Japanese comprising 5% of Pocket users. The company adds:
Not only is the app fully-translated across our platform for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish, we’ve also made significant improvements to Article View accuracy for these languages.
On our Japanese site, we’ve already been including the Pocket button for our users for some time. For me personally, Pocket is an application that I use daily, primarily because of it’s great integration with other apps and services.
Pocket was formerly called ‘Read it Later’ as you may recall. ↩
Good news for Japanese mobile games company Colopl this week as their repertoire of smartphone apps and games has now cumulatively passed 80 million downloads. One of its most popular games is Quiz RPG which has enjoyed television promotions in its home market, and has been pushed abroad with English and Korean versions. The bad news however (if they have any global aspirations) is that their name is still ‘Colopl’. In Japanese, the company’s name is ‘Koropura’ – which would have made for a far more normal name had they opted to leave it alone. [Colopl via Gamebiz.jp]
Good news for Japanese mobile games company Colopl this week as their repertoire of smartphone apps and games has now cumulatively passed 80 million downloads. One of its most popular games is Quiz RPG which has enjoyed television promotions in its home market, and has been pushed abroad with English and Korean versions.
The bad news however (if they have any global aspirations) is that their name is still ‘Colopl’. In Japanese, the company’s name is ‘Koropura’ – which would have made for a far more normal name had they opted to leave it alone.
Back in September we told you about Brand Pit, a startup which at that time won the Startup Sauna Tokyo pitch competition. It’s an analytics tool for brands that are trying to learn more about their fans, relying on image recognition technology instead of text or keyword analysis. Currently their focus is on analyzing images shared on Instagram, with some Facebook and Twitter analysis as well. By detecting brand logos in socially-shared images, any company that uses Brand Pit can gain valuable insights about who their fans and influences are, or even view a geographic heat-map of activity around their brand. In this way, they can get around the many problems associated with keyword analytics such as language barriers or spam. I had a chance to catch up with the company’s founder TT Chu (he’s the one in the video above), when they were pitching at e27’s Echelon Tokyo Satellite event last week [1]. He tells me that in the future, they plan to expand the scope of their image recognition technology in a way that will also expand its value for brands: We intend to detect more than just logos, brands and products. we are trying to extract and…
Back in September we told you about Brand Pit, a startup which at that time won the Startup Sauna Tokyo pitch competition. It’s an analytics tool for brands that are trying to learn more about their fans, relying on image recognition technology instead of text or keyword analysis.
Currently their focus is on analyzing images shared on Instagram, with some Facebook and Twitter analysis as well. By detecting brand logos in socially-shared images, any company that uses Brand Pit can gain valuable insights about who their fans and influences are, or even view a geographic heat-map of activity around their brand. In this way, they can get around the many problems associated with keyword analytics such as language barriers or spam.
I had a chance to catch up with the company’s founder TT Chu (he’s the one in the video above), when they were pitching at e27’s Echelon Tokyo Satellite event last week [1].
He tells me that in the future, they plan to expand the scope of their image recognition technology in a way that will also expand its value for brands:
We intend to detect more than just logos, brands and products. we are trying to extract and identify other information presented in the photo, such as the environment and the objects surrounding the branded products. This peripheral information will allow us a more accurate in-sight into the real situations/conditions where the products are being used/consumed. This piece of information is critical in segmenting the customer base.
I understand that their image recognition technology has been developed in house (primarily by Chu himself), and one of its key advantages is that it can perform well even when applied to user-generated images. So even when the images are poor – either too dark, maybe obscured by another object, or even if they’re too small, that Brand Pit can detect them where other technology might not.
When it comes to detecting peripheral objects for context, Chu tells me that they can even detect low-contrast objects like wine glasses, which is certainly an impressive feat.
They’re currently looking to raise funds to take their startup to the next level. And given the size and growth of the business analytics market, and the fact that they don’t really have many competitors, I expect that it won’t be too long before we have some more good news to share about Brand Pit.
Shamefully I couldn’t quite remember where I knew him from when we met again this time. I’m horrible with faces, much to my embarrassment. ↩
Japanese internet company CyberAgent recently launched a crowdsourcing platform called Mama & Crowd, which is focused on crowdsourced jobs for women with kids. Many mothers typically want to work to supplement their household income, but it can be difficult to find a nursery that would allow for conventional work at an office. The platform aims to help these mothers work at home by giving them crowdsourced jobs they can do while still caring for their kids. via CNET Japan
Japanese internet company CyberAgent recently launched a crowdsourcing platform called Mama & Crowd, which is focused on crowdsourced jobs for women with kids.
Many mothers typically want to work to supplement their household income, but it can be difficult to find a nursery that would allow for conventional work at an office. The platform aims to help these mothers work at home by giving them crowdsourced jobs they can do while still caring for their kids.
Japan’s Kakaku.com, the company that operates food review portal Tabelog, has announced that its premium membership (which costs 315 yen per month [1]) has now reached 350,000 subscribers as of March 16. The last time we checked in on these figures was last August, when it had 250,000 members. So we can say that growth since that time has been very impressive, especially in the face of challenges from new startups in the food space here in Japan. Tabelog’s premium service offers high discount coupons (ranging from 20% to 100% off), and mobile apps with advanced sorting/filtering preferences. This premium service began back in September of 2010. According to Kakaku.com, there are over 760,000 restaurants currently registered on Tabelog, with 5 million reviews, and 53 million monthly users split (almost evenly) among PC and smartphones. Or just over $3. ↩
Japan’s Kakaku.com, the company that operates food review portal Tabelog, has announced that its premium membership (which costs 315 yen per month [1]) has now reached 350,000 subscribers as of March 16. The last time we checked in on these figures was last August, when it had 250,000 members. So we can say that growth since that time has been very impressive, especially in the face of challenges from new startups in the food space here in Japan.
Tabelog’s premium service offers high discount coupons (ranging from 20% to 100% off), and mobile apps with advanced sorting/filtering preferences. This premium service began back in September of 2010.
According to Kakaku.com, there are over 760,000 restaurants currently registered on Tabelog, with 5 million reviews, and 53 million monthly users split (almost evenly) among PC and smartphones.
Masaru Ikeda
Rick Martin
