I’m late to the party on this one, but after Evernote hit 100 million users earlier this week (101 million to be specific), I was surprised to see that the Asia Pacific was the company’s biggest regional market, accounting for about 35 million of its users (see above).
This prompted me to reflect on when Evernote CEO Phil Libin dropped the following numbers about their Japan users a year ago:
About 20% of our users and 30% of our revenue comes from Japan. The Japanese aesthetic really influences us. We have said from the beginning that we want to make it a 100 year startup, and that was influenced by Japan. Japan understands this idea of long term thinking, and we hope to combine that with the best of Silicon Valley.
It’s a nice sentiment, and it’s good to see they’ve paid so much attention to Japan. Assuming that those percentages haven’t changed much over the past year, Japan may very well be Evernote’s biggest national market (or at least second biggest) in terms of both users and revenue.
Many Japanese companies have launched services that aim to better serve travelers coming to Japan. Of course, one of the biggest obstacles for such travelers is probably the language barrier. And today we’d like to tell you about a new service that aims to address the problem using smartphones. Tokyo-based company Demo recently unveiled a video chat app called Lacu which helps travelers find crowdsourced interpreters and helps them communicate with locals who cannot speak your language. The app is currently available for iOS (there’s an app for travelers and for interpreters), but they may develop an Android version too if all goes well. Using the app, you can easily find a crowdsourced interpreter to help you communicate using the video chat feature. Every interpreter can establish a price for their service ranging from 20 yen to 100 yen per minute, and volunteer interpreters can even do it for free. 40% of the fee goes to the interpreter, and 30% will be collected by both the company and the App Store. Demo has previously worked with web services like usability analytics tool Ghostrec from Sweden and a content management system from Serbia, bringing them to Japanese and Asian markets. During…
Many Japanese companies have launched services that aim to better serve travelers coming to Japan. Of course, one of the biggest obstacles for such travelers is probably the language barrier. And today we’d like to tell you about a new service that aims to address the problem using smartphones.
Tokyo-based company Demo recently unveiled a video chat app called Lacu which helps travelers find crowdsourced interpreters and helps them communicate with locals who cannot speak your language. The app is currently available for iOS (there’s an app for travelers and for interpreters), but they may develop an Android version too if all goes well.
Using the app, you can easily find a crowdsourced interpreter to help you communicate using the video chat feature. Every interpreter can establish a price for their service ranging from 20 yen to 100 yen per minute, and volunteer interpreters can even do it for free. 40% of the fee goes to the interpreter, and 30% will be collected by both the company and the App Store.
Demo has previously worked with web services like usability analytics tool Ghostrec from Sweden and a content management system from Serbia, bringing them to Japanese and Asian markets. During the localization process, the company invited engineers to their office in Tokyo, but the visitors had trouble communicating with locals, especially on weekends. As a result of this experience, Demo started developing their app.
We’ve seen similar services in the past, such as Babelverse or SmileCall. Babelverse is a low-cost but convenient simultaneous service for conferences, but it is less fitting for casual dialogues between people. SmileCall helps you communicate with a receptionist at public venues such as hotels, but it’s provided at a venue owner’s expense, so you couldn’t really bring it with you sightseeing.
Demo started acquiring interpreters prior to the app’s launch and has already seen more than 500 downloads and 300 sign-ups from interpreters. The company’s president and CEO Yoshiyasu Tsunoda told us they are ready to accept over 100,000 users requesting interpretations.
I often hear people complain that there is a lack of good contact manager apps available of smartphones. I personally have experimented with a few, most recently Contact Sync for Gmail – which is good, but doesn’t quite cut it for me. So I was delighted to hear recently from the folks at Tokyo-based startup Wantedly that they were working on a contacts management app for iPhone [1]. That app, appropriately dubbed Contact, has just gone public today in the Japanese App Store, so I’m happy to tell you a little about it after having a chance to test it pre-release. When you initially fire up the Contact app, you’ll be asked to authorize access to your mobile’s contacts, and after that your Facebook contacts as well. Note that by authorizing Facebook, you also get a chance to view Wantedly contacts as well (since the Wantedly job platform connects with Facebook), marked with a big blue ‘W’ in the app. Contacts can also be added manually to the app if you wish. Once your contacts have all been added, you can get down to organizing them into handy groups. Like any contact app, groups could be based around anything. But…
I often hear people complain that there is a lack of good contact manager apps available of smartphones. I personally have experimented with a few, most recently Contact Sync for Gmail – which is good, but doesn’t quite cut it for me. So I was delighted to hear recently from the folks at Tokyo-based startup Wantedly that they were working on a contacts management app for iPhone [1]. That app, appropriately dubbed Contact, has just gone public today in the Japanese App Store, so I’m happy to tell you a little about it after having a chance to test it pre-release.
When you initially fire up the Contact app, you’ll be asked to authorize access to your mobile’s contacts, and after that your Facebook contacts as well. Note that by authorizing Facebook, you also get a chance to view Wantedly contacts as well (since the Wantedly job platform connects with Facebook), marked with a big blue ‘W’ in the app. Contacts can also be added manually to the app if you wish.
Once your contacts have all been added, you can get down to organizing them into handy groups. Like any contact app, groups could be based around anything. But the most important group, labeled with a phone icon, are the people you call on a regular basis. So once you have this group created, you can call out in a flash from within the contacts app.
Beyond the phone group, you might organize a group for work (see my The Bridge group above), doing so using simple drag-and-drop, with various icons assigned to each group. If you add someone by mistake, just drag them out of the group and into a trash can that conveniently appears. Wantedly has built in a clever marketing device into its group label icons, letting users earn as many as 120 new icons by sharing about the app on Facebook and Twitter.
Check out the video demo below for a closer look at how the app works:
I was a little curious to hear why Wantedly was branching out to do a contacts app, given that the business of the Wantedly platform is helping people find fitting jobs by leveraging their social graph. During a recent visit to Wantedly HQ, the company’s CEO Akiko Naka explained to me:
Most people recognize Wantedly as a job searching site. But many people are starting to use it as their profile. Not only people who are searching for jobs, but for people who are working. So our team started to think we should start building something for everyone, not just people who are searching for jobs. Organizing your contacts is one of the biggest problems people have. There are many contacts grouping apps, but not of them are that cool, perhaps lacking in design or user interface. I thought we could do it better.
Wantedly CEO Akiko Naka
And personally, I think they have done it better, because the app looks pretty incredible. Perhaps the only feature additions I would request are data sync or export (perhaps to Dropbox), and maybe a batch delete/move contact option to manipulate multiple contacts, instead of having to drag and drop contacts one-by-one.
Given that the app is only available in Japanese right now [2], I had to ask Akiko the obvious question of whether or not they plan to publish an English version – to which she replied with a very short “Yup.”
Wantedly is a service that I’ve been expecting to launch in overseas markets at just about any moment now. They already have an English interface, so I’m looking forward to seeing them branch out when that day comes. But Akiko noted that if a contacts app like theirs is to succeed in a certain region, it helps if they are a trusted and recognized name in that region:
In Japan people know Wantedly pretty widely, so they aren’t scared to connect your contacts with it. In the US, maybe, then there might be a bit of a hurdle. Maybe Southeast Asia first.
If you have access to the Japanese App Store, I encourage you to give Contact a try. I’ve tried a lot of contact management apps in the past, and this has turned out to be one of my favorites.
But if you can download it from the App Store, I think there’s no reason you can’t use it even if you don’t speak Japanese. The app is very simple, with very little text. ↩
The latest in wearable tech from Japan is an interesting contrast with Google Glass. Instead of scanning the world around you for useful data, ‘Jins Meme’ glasses look back only at yourself in an effort to collect useful data from your eyes and the areas around them, monitoring blinking, blink duration, vision shifts and more. The glasses are scheduled to go on sale next spring, with a public API coming in the fall. For Jins’ own explation of the concept, check out the promo video from Jins, which we’ve included above [1]. Update: Looks like Jins has made the YouTube video private suddenly. The data will sync with an accompanying smartphone app which lets you review important info at any time. Here’s an excerpt from the product’s webpage that nicely sums up the value proposition of the system: Based on changes in eye movement, JINS MEME is able to determine levels of mental and physical tiredness, which many people are unable to notice on their own. Recovery rates from tiredness in humans drop dramatically once a certain threshold is crossed. JINS MEME can detect and alert you to those levels before reaching that point, providing a new kind of management…
The latest in wearable tech from Japan is an interesting contrast with Google Glass. Instead of scanning the world around you for useful data, ‘Jins Meme’ glasses look back only at yourself in an effort to collect useful data from your eyes and the areas around them, monitoring blinking, blink duration, vision shifts and more. The glasses are scheduled to go on sale next spring, with a public API coming in the fall. For Jins’ own explation of the concept, check out the promo video from Jins, which we’ve included above[1]. Update: Looks like Jins has made the YouTube video private suddenly.
The data will sync with an accompanying smartphone app which lets you review important info at any time. Here’s an excerpt from the product’s webpage that nicely sums up the value proposition of the system:
Based on changes in eye movement, JINS MEME is able to determine levels of mental and physical tiredness, which many people are unable to notice on their own. Recovery rates from tiredness in humans drop dramatically once a certain threshold is crossed. JINS MEME can detect and alert you to those levels before reaching that point, providing a new kind of management tool for preventing tiredness from accumulating and for improving work efficiency.
In addition to electrooculography (or eye motion) sensors, the device will also be equipped with a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyro sensor. So even when you are active or exercising, Jins Meme can help you monitor how many calories you’ve burned, or even feedback on your speed or posture.
Jins Meme will come in three styles, the classic ‘Wellington’ style, a half-rim style, and sunglasses. The glasses will certainly benefit from the added advantage of being rather stylish, and not making the wearer look like a tech-augmented cyborg.
On a somewhat related note, our readers will likely be familiar with Japan’s other notable glasses tech ‘Telepathy’ from the creator of Sekai Camera. As for Google Glass, it was recently discovered via code in its latest apk file that localized Japanese commands are soon on the way. So we can expect to see a battle for user eyeballs not to far in the future here in Japan! [2]
The Jins Meme app, alerting you while driving
It’s an unlisted video that we’ve gone and embedded, so Jins could disable it at any time. Apologies in advance if they do. Update: And it looks like they have. ↩
Since these glasses serve an entirely different function than Google Glass, many would argue that Jins Meme is not a Glass competitor. But I would assert that since one cannot wear two pairs of glasses at once, that any pair of glasses is a competitor for any other pair of glasses. ↩
Here’s a useful new site for parents in Japan [1]. Cozre Community (cozre.jp) is a web service that lists more than 10,000 diaper changing and breast feeding spots around the country. The service is presented as a mobile-friendly web app, which will show you nearby baby-friendly areas if you grant the site permission to access your currently location when you visit the site on a smartphone. The site provides handy information about each spot, such as whether or not it is stroller-friendly, if there’s a feeding space, or if there’s a train station or parking nearby. Cozre Community has just been launched in beta, so I hope they’ll have many more listings added over time. The site is certainly an interesting one for parents to browse, with recommended spots and popular outings featured on the front page. Via Venture News The site really only target mothers, but as a father who changes lots of diapers, I’m going assume there are lots of men who will be interested in this too. ↩
Here’s a useful new site for parents in Japan [1]. Cozre Community (cozre.jp) is a web service that lists more than 10,000 diaper changing and breast feeding spots around the country.
The service is presented as a mobile-friendly web app, which will show you nearby baby-friendly areas if you grant the site permission to access your currently location when you visit the site on a smartphone.
The site provides handy information about each spot, such as whether or not it is stroller-friendly, if there’s a feeding space, or if there’s a train station or parking nearby.
Cozre Community has just been launched in beta, so I hope they’ll have many more listings added over time. The site is certainly an interesting one for parents to browse, with recommended spots and popular outings featured on the front page.
The site really only target mothers, but as a father who changes lots of diapers, I’m going assume there are lots of men who will be interested in this too. ↩
We have witnessed a number of personal finance apps from Japanese developers over the past few years. Most notably, both Zaim and ReceReco have both taken an ease-of-input approach by implementing OCR technology into their apps for quick scanning of receipts. But today I’d like to look at a new personal finance app that takes a more visual approach to monitoring your personal spending. It’s called Photo Money. Currently available on iOS in both Japanese and English, the application lets you take a picture of whatever you’ve bought, and add the price using a large calculator-style input. Note that you can input in just about any currency, so users all around the world can try out Photo Money if they wish. The result of logging your purchases in this way is a reverse-chronological gallery of your expenditures, which is a great visual overview of your spending. The app also differs from other finance apps in that it presents only a weekly view. While this could be merely because of the space constraints of the photo gallery view, the developer states that it’s because one week gives you shorter iterations of time to improve your spending habits. So if you aren’t…
We have witnessed a number of personal finance apps from Japanese developers over the past few years. Most notably, both Zaim and ReceReco have both taken an ease-of-input approach by implementing OCR technology into their apps for quick scanning of receipts. But today I’d like to look at a new personal finance app that takes a more visual approach to monitoring your personal spending. It’s called Photo Money.
Currently available on iOS in both Japanese and English, the application lets you take a picture of whatever you’ve bought, and add the price using a large calculator-style input. Note that you can input in just about any currency, so users all around the world can try out Photo Money if they wish. The result of logging your purchases in this way is a reverse-chronological gallery of your expenditures, which is a great visual overview of your spending.
The app also differs from other finance apps in that it presents only a weekly view. While this could be merely because of the space constraints of the photo gallery view, the developer states that it’s because one week gives you shorter iterations of time to improve your spending habits. So if you aren’t happy with your spending this week, you can try to do better starting next Monday!
Developed by RandyApps [1], Photo Money is ad supported, although I think many users would welcome a paid, ad-free version too. Photo Money is currently not ranked very high on the App Store, but I think if it was reclassified to be included in the less croweded ‘finance’ category (it looks to be classified as a photo app for the time being), it could gain significant visibility as applications like Zaim and ReceReco have.
I’ve reached out to the Japanese developer, who may be based in Japan, or possibly Australia. I’m not certain. ↩
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
