Tokyo-based Nightley, a Japanese startup developing analytics technologies using geographical data, launched a service this month called Inbound Insight, which visualizes how visitors to Japan behave on the map by leveraging what they post on social media platforms.
Inbound Insight is available via two service plans: Behavioral Data Visualization Plan and Analytics Data Purchase Plan.
As a freemium service, the former plan provides users with a heatmap on the map, popular destination rankings, and behavioral data via charts. In addition, premium users paying a monthly subscription fee of 100,000 yen ($800) also offers a route map showing how visitors are traveling around Japan, estimated nationality deviation (only for visitors from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand), estimated gender deviation (only for visitors from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), visiting venue data, posted words on social media platform, and attached pictures. User subscriptions will be updated every three months.
The latter plan offers analytics data in a CSV format during the dates a user designates, with attributes like data and time, latitude and longitude, prefecture, city or town, street or block name, venue name, user ID, assumed gender, estimated nationality, posted text, and URL for attached pictures. Starting at 500,000 yen ($4,000), the fee for this plan varies depending on duration and geographical coverage on what a user wants to grab the statistics in.
A route map showing how visitors are traveling.This map shows visiting venue data, posted words on social media platform.Estimated gender deviation (only for visitors from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong).
Nightley has been developing analytics technologies leveraging social interactions in Japanese, but the company has developed additional technologies to detect user language on social media platforms, their nationality, and whether they are in Japan or overseas.
Inbound Insight gives users analytics based on interactions from Twitter, Sina Weibo and other social network platforms. Meanwhile, private posts and log data from other, closed apps are not made subject to use as source of the statistics.
Nightley will market the product to government offices, the tourism industry, hotels, shopping malls, and store associations in Japan because they intend to invite foreign visitors to their sites, aiming to acquire 100 corporate users for the visualization plan as well as 20 corporate users for the data purchase plan.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Wacul, which offers website improvement consulting, announced last month that it has fundraised about 3 million yen (about $2.5 million) from Japanese VC firm Jafco (TSE: 8595). Wacul launched a product called AI Analyst in April 2015, which is an access analytics tool for websites which automatically suggests improvement plans. Acquiring traffic data from Google Analytics, AI Analyst analyzes a large volume of data, difficult for humans to aggregate, and lets one spot problems within the website automatically. When comparing data with various attributes such as local devices or upon referring to pages, landing pages or visitors flow for a website that have more than 200 pages, the combinations of data can become enormous. The Wacul team aims to replace human power with artificial intelligence to process such high-volume data. Many website owners are incapable of analyzing access traffic sufficiently, even while implementing tools like Google Analytics for data acquisition. Since AI Analyst links with data of these tools, one can start using it easily. Once implemented, AI Analyst starts learning the characteristics of a website, past analysis reports or business trends from each vertical, so that its accuracy is improved. AI…
Tokyo-based startup Wacul, which offers website improvement consulting, announced last month that it has fundraised about 3 million yen (about $2.5 million) from Japanese VC firm Jafco (TSE: 8595). Wacul launched a product called AI Analyst in April 2015, which is an access analytics tool for websites which automatically suggests improvement plans.
Acquiring traffic data from Google Analytics, AI Analyst analyzes a large volume of data, difficult for humans to aggregate, and lets one spot problems within the website automatically.
When comparing data with various attributes such as local devices or upon referring to pages, landing pages or visitors flow for a website that have more than 200 pages, the combinations of data can become enormous. The Wacul team aims to replace human power with artificial intelligence to process such high-volume data.
Many website owners are incapable of analyzing access traffic sufficiently, even while implementing tools like Google Analytics for data acquisition. Since AI Analyst links with data of these tools, one can start using it easily. Once implemented, AI Analyst starts learning the characteristics of a website, past analysis reports or business trends from each vertical, so that its accuracy is improved.
AI Analyst costs 30,000 yen (about $250) for a month but one will be charged only in the month one requires the report, not every month. Therefore, it is possible to check the report once a quarter, for example.
Wacul CEO Hirofumi Otsu explained that AI Analyst is at the stage of learning judgment by human consultant and of trying to recreate that. The team is going to improve accuracy by joint research with Prof. Yutaka Matsuo’s lab in the University of Tokyo from now on, in order to develop a superior artificial intelligence level with accuracy exceeding human judgments.
Some Japanese companies have begun employing staff in charge of website or web marketing teams. That is quite obvious outside Japan, but not the case domestically. As the division works well within the company, cost consciousness will appear there. We hope that AI Analyst will meet such demand as a tool with high cost performance. Also, we want small startups that cannot afford sufficient web analytics to utilize it.
Spread of access analysis tools has made it possible for many players to acquire data. Accordingly, various services that provide methods for checking these acquired data has been multiplying. AI Analyst being usable at 30,000 yen a month seems to be widely acceptable.
The Wacul team will use the latest funds to enhance human resources and promotion. When data accumulated has been introduced widely and as Wacul’s technical ability improves, we wonder what kind of improvement plans AI Analyst can suggest to us?
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. “Wouldn’t that be cool if there was a service for this?” Until recently that was where a lot of ideas began and ended, but now we’re seeing an increase in app developers who didn’t stop there. “If there isn’t a service for this, I guess I’ll just make it myself.” became the new impetus for developers such as Rika Goto, an engineer working at Tokyo creative collective Kayac (TSE:3904). While working as a full-time employee, Goto spent weekends designing and programming for four months to release her iOS app Meal. “It has to be simple enough for my parents to use.” Meal is a “life log” app that creates a running record of pictures of your breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. The application’s primary functions are taking pictures and importing photos from your smartphone’s photo albums. Photos taken are organized and displayed in calendar form so users can easily look back and reminisce on what they ate last week or last month. Photos that have been imported from a photo album will be sorted automatically by the application based on the photo’s timestamp into either breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Goto’s biggest fixation when…
“Wouldn’t that be cool if there was a service for this?” Until recently that was where a lot of ideas began and ended, but now we’re seeing an increase in app developers who didn’t stop there.
“If there isn’t a service for this, I guess I’ll just make it myself.” became the new impetus for developers such as Rika Goto, an engineer working at Tokyo creative collective Kayac (TSE:3904). While working as a full-time employee, Goto spent weekends designing and programming for four months to release her iOS app Meal.
“It has to be simple enough for my parents to use.”
Meal is a “life log” app that creates a running record of pictures of your breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. The application’s primary functions are taking pictures and importing photos from your smartphone’s photo albums. Photos taken are organized and displayed in calendar form so users can easily look back and reminisce on what they ate last week or last month. Photos that have been imported from a photo album will be sorted automatically by the application based on the photo’s timestamp into either breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Goto’s biggest fixation when it came to developing meal was “it has to be simple enough for my parents to use.” Trimming superfluous features down to the very minimum, her entire focus was set on developing an app for looking at pictures of the food we eat everyday.
When you’re developing an application, there’s a tendency to get excited about it and just keep adding more features, but with meal, I was determined to trim it down to its most simple form, even if people say ‘uh, is this is all it can do?’
“Just try to make it, whatever the programming language.”
Meal is so simple to use the app itself doesn’t need any words, which is why it was released in English only. Within five days of release in late June it is already being embraced by users in 23 different countries with feedback pouring in. One such user shared, “I didn’t used to eat breakfast very often, but seeing that breakfast space left blank was actually kind of sad so I started eating three meals a day.”
The idea to create Meal came from Goto’s daily life. She said:
I like eating, and I take pictures of what I eat, but I would never really organize those pictures or share them on social media or anything, so they just starting filling up my photo library. I looked at all my pictures of food and thought it was a shame they were just sitting there, so that’s where I got the idea to make Meal.
Goto’s motto when making something new is, “Just try to make it, whatever the programming language.” Meal was Goto’s first time using Objective-C, but recalls developing Meal being quite enjoyable. She thinks of a programming language as a means to turning an idea into something real, and that trying to make what it is you want to make might be the quickest way to learn a new language.
For now, Meal’s objective is to reach 5,000 downloads in three months. Goto has a lot of ideas for the app such as sharing your meal calendar with friends and managing it via the web, but plans to hold off on those for now, listen to user feedback and requests, and continue brushing up meal as things progress.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. On July 1, Telenoid Planning was established in Kyoto with support from Nippon Venture Capital (NVCC) of Tokyo. During a press conference held on July 13 in Tokyo to unveil the project in full, the market prospects for the service being launched utilizing a small robot were explored. At the center of this endeavor is a legless automaton called Telenoid developed by Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University professor and an Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) Fellow simultaneously heading his namesake research laboratories there specializing in “life-support” robotics. NVCC President Shuichi Okuhara, who also heads up the 4.7-billion-yen Keihanna ATR Fund backing the project, outlined the relations between NVCC and ATR, which is located also in Kyoto in an area known as “Keihanna” but holds many intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the fields of robotics, information science and telecommunications that may be monetized. ATR, represented in the new company by a Dr. Toshikazu Sakano acting as the auditor, will next year celebrate its 30th anniversary. The Telenoid is the first in a series of IPRs from ATR to be used…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro (right) introduces Telenoid and Telenoid Planning.
On July 1, Telenoid Planning was established in Kyoto with support from Nippon Venture Capital (NVCC) of Tokyo. During a press conference held on July 13 in Tokyo to unveil the project in full, the market prospects for the service being launched utilizing a small robot were explored. At the center of this endeavor is a legless automaton called Telenoid developed by Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University professor and an Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) Fellow simultaneously heading his namesake research laboratories there specializing in “life-support” robotics.
NVCC President Shuichi Okuhara, who also heads up the 4.7-billion-yen Keihanna ATR Fund backing the project, outlined the relations between NVCC and ATR, which is located also in Kyoto in an area known as “Keihanna” but holds many intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the fields of robotics, information science and telecommunications that may be monetized. ATR, represented in the new company by a Dr. Toshikazu Sakano acting as the auditor, will next year celebrate its 30th anniversary. The Telenoid is the first in a series of IPRs from ATR to be used in product development with the Fund’s backing through June of 2024.
President Akio Kamiyama, of Shibuya-based Cocolomi offering “conversational eldercare” and alert service, will concurrently serve as president of Telenoid Planning – in fact, the tiny tot-like product is in the main a remotely-controlled terminal which requires an operator “on the other side” to hold conversations with the users; thus the network of operators availed by Cocolomi will be offered as a service bundled with Telenoid. The markets targeted will be the elderly in particular those suffering from senility not to mention other people who may have mental problems. The price is yet to be set at this time.
Telenoid emanates from the Geminoid project under which Dr. Ishiguro made a “robot copy” of himself as part of his Humanoid Robotics Interface aimed at use in public information dissemination, language inculcation and eldercare in terms of both physical as well as mental assistance. Unfortunately the Geminoid had some issues upon reception such as having too much “character modality” or appearing like a “moving corpse.” It was therefore decided that in order to lower the stress entailed, the robot would be “stripped of features” and made “colorless” as it were. Testing at multiple daycare sites in Japan and Denmark proved that acceptance of the “voice-only” figure with minimal head and limb movement was much better.
Telenoid, although at first glance seems a bit pallid, is laden with sensors so it can check the condition of the user, in addition to having a “constant gaze that looks to one earnestly” which soon helps endear itself with the user, lending itself to being a neutral bridge between the cyber and real worlds. It seems that many users are able to project the image onto the bland “colorless” face in line with the soothing voice accompanying the robot and end up adding a positive image onto the little doll. The company certainly hopes the service will be a hit, and looks to produce “new friends for humanity” in the not-too-distant future.
See the original story in Japanese. As evolving technology continues breaking down barriers in the IT business world, an increase in competition for jobs is one thing that is apparent. Location, time, working conditions, and other variables factor in to the changing shape of how we work. Unconventional companies like Buffer that have staff working remotely from all over the world, founders included, gather the best personnel available and personify the work structure of the new age. Offering More than 200 positions in over 30 countries With a beta release in August 2014, Jobbatical’s mission is to connect skilled people to startup companies located all over the world. People who find work through Jobbatical will need to move to the city or location of that company for a minimum one year period. As opposed to working remotely from your current location, Jobbatical is suggesting a new working system where users relocate to the company’s city or area. By living somewhere for at least one year, Jobbatical offers an experience that otherwise can’t be had as a casual traveler. At present more than 200 positions in over 30 different countries are on Jobbatical, and registered users have exceeded 5,000. Jobbatical seems…
As evolving technology continues breaking down barriers in the IT business world, an increase in competition for jobs is one thing that is apparent. Location, time, working conditions, and other variables factor in to the changing shape of how we work. Unconventional companies like Buffer that have staff working remotely from all over the world, founders included, gather the best personnel available and personify the work structure of the new age.
Offering More than 200 positions in over 30 countries
With a beta release in August 2014, Jobbatical’s mission is to connect skilled people to startup companies located all over the world. People who find work through Jobbatical will need to move to the city or location of that company for a minimum one year period.
As opposed to working remotely from your current location, Jobbatical is suggesting a new working system where users relocate to the company’s city or area. By living somewhere for at least one year, Jobbatical offers an experience that otherwise can’t be had as a casual traveler. At present more than 200 positions in over 30 different countries are on Jobbatical, and registered users have exceeded 5,000.
Jobbatical seems it would be an valuable resource for companies who are looking to hire talent from other countries. All processes in posting a new job, from taking pictures to writing a description, is completely planned and designed by the Jobbatical staffers. They take into consideration how to make say, for instance, a job in Malaysia looks as appealing as possible to job seekers in other countries when taking pictures and creating a profile. As the service is still in beta, all planning services are free of charge, however they are considering becoming a paid service in the future.
Popular locations: Singapore, Germany, Estonia, and more
Singapore-based Adtech startup is seeking a QA engineer.
Over half of the jobs published on Jobbatical are for some sort of software engineer. Other types of positions include marketing, business development, sales, UX/UI engineering, product management, etc. Singapore, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Estonia are some of the most popular work destinations.
In the past, two of the most popular positions were community management at Jakarta-based food industry startup AbraResto, and travel guide inspection at Alien Adventure, a travel industry startup in Amsterdam. Other positions registered to the site range from engineer jobs in Vietnam to marketing jobs in Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, and many more.
This time we had the chance to hear from Jobbatical’s Japanese-American global marketer, Isabel Hirama. Currently living in Estonia, the initial push was an open position at Jobbatical for a “native English speaker who can do marketing.”
I thought the idea of a going somewhere to work for a short time while having an adventure was fascinating. All of the positions are generally about one year. Of course giving a full commitment to move somewhere for a year is tough at first, but actually living somewhere for that long gives you an experience that travelers just can’t get.
Karoli Hindriks, co-founder and CEO of Jobbatical, is Estonia’s second-ever female startup CEO who has succeeded in securing VC funding. She became CEO of MTV Estonia at her age of 23 and has helped build various other media since.
The idea for Jobbatical, a hybrid of the words “job” and “sabbatical”, came to Karoli in March of 2014 when she was in Malaysia.
She realized that relaxing at the beach is nice and all but after about a week you start to get bored and restless. After searching the web for short term jobs that can be done while adventuring around new places, she found nothing but volunteer jobs on farms, nothing that made use of her business skills. Soon after, she had the chance to go to Silicon Valley, where she went around to startups in the area and eventually got a 6-month position. She thought, people should have to go searching for jobs by themselves, there should be a marketplace for this kind of thing.
Hindriks explained:
To get out of your own country for one year and go do a job on the other side of the globe; I thought there should be a style of working like that. Our long term goal is for the word Jobbatical to be in the dictionary, then I want to make it so it’ll be obvious that there is a way to work like this.
Finding people with entrepreneurial qualities
Recently, not only startups and corporations, but also NPO and social enterprise jobs in multiple countries are increasing in number, said Hindriks. In the near future, Jobbatical is planning to start doing curation on the site as well as begin offering a sort of matching system.
Jobbatical is largely targeted at so-called “globetrotters”, or people who travel widely, which is why Hindricks believes that because globetrotters have some entrepreneurial qualities, jobs at startups are a particularly compatible fit. There are many people who either like traveling, experiencing new things, or people who embrace change. She says that Jobbatical attracts people who want a change of scenery, dive into the unknown and get a fresh start, people with the entrepreneurial spirit.
Estonia, where every part of one’s life is digitized to the point where even doing tax returns takes just five minutes, is also sometimes called “E-stonia” in reference to their trend of making use of technology in many aspects of its peoples’ lives. Hindricks hopes that the Estonia based Jobbatical will change even more the way we live and work today.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Counterworks recently launched in full Shopcounter, an online marketplace focusing on retail counters. Upon launch, Counterworks also announced that Kento Yamamoto of The Clip [1] joined the team as CCO (Chief Creative Officer) from June, who has been collaborating with various startups in designs. Online marketplace handling pop-up spaces for retailers Shopcounter is an online marketplace handling pop-up spaces for the purpose of displaying, selling or promoting products, where user retailers can complete the rental procedure online including search, inquiry, reservation and payment. Overseas, San Francisco-based Storefront and UK-based Appear Here are offering similar services, indicating that it is a sector noteworthy of the limelight. Counterworks CEO Naoki Mikame had been working for Japanese adtech startup FreakOut until last August. After that, he started this new company on his own and launched Shopcounter due to his original interest in the real estate business. Mikame notes, I have been interested in the real estate business in part since my parents’ company deals in real estate and construction. However, the management style for real estate has been changing lately as indicated by Airbnb. Considering this situation and leveraging my experiences, I came to launch…
From the left: Counterworks CEO Naoki Mikame, CCO Kento Yamamoto
Tokyo-based startup Counterworks recently launched in full Shopcounter, an online marketplace focusing on retail counters.
Upon launch, Counterworks also announced that Kento Yamamoto of The Clip [1] joined the team as CCO (Chief Creative Officer) from June, who has been collaborating with various startups in designs.
Online marketplace handling pop-up spaces for retailers
Shopcounter is an online marketplace handling pop-up spaces for the purpose of displaying, selling or promoting products, where user retailers can complete the rental procedure online including search, inquiry, reservation and payment.
Overseas, San Francisco-based Storefront and UK-based Appear Here are offering similar services, indicating that it is a sector noteworthy of the limelight.
Counterworks CEO Naoki Mikame had been working for Japanese adtech startup FreakOut until last August. After that, he started this new company on his own and launched Shopcounter due to his original interest in the real estate business.
Mikame notes,
I have been interested in the real estate business in part since my parents’ company deals in real estate and construction. However, the management style for real estate has been changing lately as indicated by Airbnb. Considering this situation and leveraging my experiences, I came to launch Shopcounter, while also keeping in perspective a social background where the number of vacant storefronts has been increasing.
Real spaces for e-Commerce
Space available at a Harajuku shopping mall
Mikame explains that growth now in the e-Commerce market is another factor behind the birth of Shopcounter, in addition to the surplus of available pop-up spaces.
Mikame says,
The e-commerce market size is expanding as the number of online trading users increases. A sizable number of consumers constitutes the e-commerce end-user pool intent on directly touching the products in order to confirm the details before purchase, so that even web-originated stores require marketing plans that utilize real spaces.
Today it has become much easier to establish a small business. Those who want to open stores can own their spaces by utilizing vacant stores or empty commercial spaces, and we hope to support them upon gathering customers online.
Shopcounter is seen being suitable as well for active marketplaces that cater in handcrafted goods.
Considering the characteristics of Shopcounter, it is important that many people can easily visit the pop-up spaces. Hence, most of the rental properties listed on the website are located in areas with much traffic or good accessibility. By focusing on the retailers, it can likely be differentiated from other marketplaces handling rental spaces.
Designer taking part in management
Another announcement in addition to this official launch of the service noted that Kento Yamamoto, who is a designer of The Clip, will join the team as CCO.
Yamamoto explains:
I have been involved in design of Shopcounter from the early stage, however development had been delayed in spite of the pre-launch in February. Being interest in business content, I came to think of joining the team on my own.
I have participated in a lot of matters related to newly establishment of startups as a designer so far. There are still only a few designers who understand management as much as the product owners, even less with skills of actually designing and coding hands-on. It would be interesting to develop a new role model for designers, by joining startups as a board member who owns the company stocks as well.
Recently, we had reported that Mikihiro Fujii, an UX (user experience) designer, had joined Tokyo-based Goodpatch as a corporate officer. We should keep an eye on Counterworks and see how the management team which adds a designer will impact the entire organization.
Offers different approach for retailers
According to Mikame, Shopcounter has set the goal of some 300 spaces to be registered in Tokyo alone by next March.
We are now at the stage of proposing plans to rent out counters or sections available. There we explain to store owners that customers differing from former ones would visit the store as a result of collaborating with other types of business or brands.
He adds,
Also we tell owners prior to registration that they can refuse to rent the space, and should rent only to retailers having concepts that match the entire store. Store owners will be charged intermediation fees if the rental contracts are concluded.
Recently some cafés or coffee stands attached to apparel shops can often be seen in Japan, in an effort to approach target users from different perspectives or to extend their in-store time. Shopcounter also appears to be angling for such demands.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
The Clip is a prototyping and engineering team focused on developing web services and mobile apps. The Bridge logo was designed by The Clip team. ↩
Masaru Ikeda
Junya Mori
Yukari Mitsuhashi
The Bridge
