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Niconico Douga: Japanese online video site puts discussion front and center

SCORE 1,948

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.27

Youtube is the most popular online video site in the world, and it’s certainly big here in Japan too. But Japan also has a very unique video sharing site called Niconico Douga that’s wildly popular among netizens [1]. The site enables users to comment on top of the video they’re viewing, resulting in the feeling that everyone is together in one big room enjoying (or not enjoying) the same video. Comments are displayed at the time in the video corresponding with when they were posted, and the random marquee-style text transforms the video into an entirely new form of entertainment. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks, with the actual video included below. Niconico Douga quietly first emerged back in December of 2006, pushing out a beta version a month later. Since then, the site has offered many unique features to its users, successfully accumulating over 30 million users as of 2012. That averages out to a whopping 440,000 new users per month. The user demographic is mostly male (with 67% men and 33% women) and most of the active users are in the 20-29 age range (about 42%). There have been over 8.7 million videos uploaded to the site…

Youtube is the most popular online video site in the world, and it’s certainly big here in Japan too. But Japan also has a very unique video sharing site called Niconico Douga that’s wildly popular among netizens [1]. The site enables users to comment on top of the video they’re viewing, resulting in the feeling that everyone is together in one big room enjoying (or not enjoying) the same video. Comments are displayed at the time in the video corresponding with when they were posted, and the random marquee-style text transforms the video into an entirely new form of entertainment. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks, with the actual video included below.

Niconico Douga quietly first emerged back in December of 2006, pushing out a beta version a month later. Since then, the site has offered many unique features to its users, successfully accumulating over 30 million users as of 2012. That averages out to a whopping 440,000 new users per month. The user demographic is mostly male (with 67% men and 33% women) and most of the active users are in the 20-29 age range (about 42%). There have been over 8.7 million videos uploaded to the site in total.

In general, the site is sort of perceived as a place for otaku who typically prefer anonymous communication. However since the launch of live streaming videos, people in the mainstream have also joined the site, including but not limited to politicians, idol groups, and music bands. Currently there are almost 100 official channels that live stream content on the site. What’s interesting is that Niconico Douga allows users to sign up using Facebook credentials, and that of course requires your real name. This may have been influenced by Ustream, which uses Twitter and Facebook for sign-in.

The company behind Niconico Douga is niwango, a subsidiary of dwango which runs a music and ringtone downloading business. Niwango’s sales for first quarter of 2013 was 3.8 billion yen (or more than $41 million). Of that, one fourth comes from their premium registry that allows users to upload videos of a larger size, as well as the capability to live stream videos, create communities, and more. So far 1.8 million users have joined this premium service.

Niconico Douga is definitely a unique domestic service with no strict equivalent outside of Japan, although the site does have a multi-language interface and has been supporting English comments since October of 2011. There are services like this other different genres such as bookmarking, curation, etc, and in the future I plan to introduce you to more of these Japan-optimized sites.

This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan.

Japanese people often refer to the site as NicoDou. ↩

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CyberAgent joins the mobile chat app war with Decolink

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.26

We’ve covered the cutthroat chat application war in the Japanese market in a recent post, illustrating how NHN Japan’s Line leads the game so far, with DeNA’s Comm and KakaoTalk as distant runners-up. As if there weren’t enough chat apps already, CyberAgent (TYO:4751) just launched yet another player, but this one has a slightly different angle. Decolink (yes, it’s another Deco-something app!) is CyberAgent’s newly minted application for iOS and Android, which is aming to snag teenage girls as its target users. The app lets you chat with a maximum of 100 friends, and you can also change the background image and fonts for different chat windows. This latter ability to customize the look of a product is essential when the primarily target market is younger girls. What’s even more essential perhaps are the decorative stamps, of which Decolink provides over 10,000. Stamps are often cited as the major reason behind Line’s huge success so far. Sort of like emoji on steriods, people often use stamps in chat to express themselves instead of using text. In much the same way that a Facebook Like is a sort of mindless response that doesn’t require any words, stamps are often used…

We’ve covered the cutthroat chat application war in the Japanese market in a recent post, illustrating how NHN Japan’s Line leads the game so far, with DeNA’s Comm and KakaoTalk as distant runners-up. As if there weren’t enough chat apps already, CyberAgent (TYO:4751) just launched yet another player, but this one has a slightly different angle.

Decolink (yes, it’s another Deco-something app!) is CyberAgent’s newly minted application for iOS and Android, which is aming to snag teenage girls as its target users. The app lets you chat with a maximum of 100 friends, and you can also change the background image and fonts for different chat windows. This latter ability to customize the look of a product is essential when the primarily target market is younger girls.

What’s even more essential perhaps are the decorative stamps, of which Decolink provides over 10,000. Stamps are often cited as the major reason behind Line’s huge success so far. Sort of like emoji on steriods, people often use stamps in chat to express themselves instead of using text. In much the same way that a Facebook Like is a sort of mindless response that doesn’t require any words, stamps are often used in the same way among many Japanese users.

Deco-disrupter?

CyberAgent does have a competitive advantage, as the company runs the huge Ameba Blog platform which had more than 20 million users as of January 2012. The platform is widely used by Japanese people including celebrities. Through cross-promotions with other products under the Ameba umbrella, Decolink might be able to eclipse some of the other chat app competitors — although it’s unlikely that it could catch Line.

Decolink was developed by a team within CyberAgent that creates products dedicated for teens. I have to wonder if these cute, more feminine stamps are a key differeciator from Line, and if any teenage girls will take the bait. We’ll find out sooner or later, so stay tuned.

(h/t Chiho Komoriya over at VS Media)

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Japanese startup turns oversized greeting cards into an unlikely digital business

SCORE 1,176

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.25

In Japan, when someone leaves a company, or if there’s a special occasion like a new baby or someone’s birthday, very often people will add personal notes on a big card to convey best wishes. In Japanese this is called yosegaki which means “to gather” and “write”. But the problem is that you can only gather messages from people you’re physically with, so if you need to collect messages from people who are not in the same place, it can be difficult, if not impossible. But a relatively new company called Yosetti has created a digital yosegaki card service. You can now go to Yosetti’s mobile-optimized website, and sign up using Facebook, Twitter, or email. Cards are available for many occasions including birthdays, farewells, marriages, new babies, and more. Each category comes with corresponding design templates, and once you’ve selected one, the service provides you with a unique URL which you can then share with friends so they can contribute messages. The resulting card can be sent for free as a link that can be browsed on the web. There are also options to download the card as a PDF for 300 yen (about $3), or print it on a…

In Japan, when someone leaves a company, or if there’s a special occasion like a new baby or someone’s birthday, very often people will add personal notes on a big card to convey best wishes. In Japanese this is called yosegaki which means “to gather” and “write”.

But the problem is that you can only gather messages from people you’re physically with, so if you need to collect messages from people who are not in the same place, it can be difficult, if not impossible. But a relatively new company called Yosetti has created a digital yosegaki card service.

You can now go to Yosetti’s mobile-optimized website, and sign up using Facebook, Twitter, or email. Cards are available for many occasions including birthdays, farewells, marriages, new babies, and more. Each category comes with corresponding design templates, and once you’ve selected one, the service provides you with a unique URL which you can then share with friends so they can contribute messages.

The resulting card can be sent for free as a link that can be browsed on the web. There are also options to download the card as a PDF for 300 yen (about $3), or print it on a fancy piece of cardboard for 2800 yen (about $30).

Check out the the promotional video below to learn more about how the site works.

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Japanese iPhone spy game turns English study into exciting covert mission

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.22

When it comes to English language skills, Japanese people tend to be more book-smart. We learn English as a second language starting in elementary school, but it was only in April of 2011 that English became mandatory for elementary school students. Before that, English study began in middle school. As an island nation, there are a limited number of foreigners in Japan [1], and for the most part, you can pretty much live here without needing any other language except Japanese. Of course a lack of practice invariably results in a corresponding lack of skills. And to help address Japan’s English problems, a company called Roll & Move is trying to make English learning more fun. How? Its app Choho-Listening E.I.A. (E.I.A. stands for English Intelligence Spying Agency) is encouraging users to become spies on a secret mission! After starting the app, you’re welcomed by your secret agent boss who helps you jump into the plot. After some preliminary questions about your current English skills, you’re given a passport corresponding to your proficiency level. From there, you’re off on a secret mission to spy on people’s conversations and report back (answering questions about the conversation) to your boss about your…

When it comes to English language skills, Japanese people tend to be more book-smart. We learn English as a second language starting in elementary school, but it was only in April of 2011 that English became mandatory for elementary school students. Before that, English study began in middle school. As an island nation, there are a limited number of foreigners in Japan [1], and for the most part, you can pretty much live here without needing any other language except Japanese.

Of course a lack of practice invariably results in a corresponding lack of skills. And to help address Japan’s English problems, a company called Roll & Move is trying to make English learning more fun. How? Its app Choho-Listening E.I.A. (E.I.A. stands for English Intelligence Spying Agency) is encouraging users to become spies on a secret mission!

After starting the app, you’re welcomed by your secret agent boss who helps you jump into the plot. After some preliminary questions about your current English skills, you’re given a passport corresponding to your proficiency level. From there, you’re off on a secret mission to spy on people’s conversations and report back (answering questions about the conversation) to your boss about your findings.

With background noise and buzzing sounds, the audio environment seems very real. The illustrations and design of the app suits the exciting secret mission plot line, and the story settings motivate users to complete and study more. The app is not only fun but the content is very practical, created based on actual TOEIC problems.

Almost half the people I meet lament their lack of English skills. And admittedly, most study methods are pretty boring. But I definitely recommend this neat little app so aspiring students can say ‘Sayonara’ to English study of the coma-inducing variety.

The total number of immigrants was 7.1 million in 2011, minus 2.3 million from previous year. ↩

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Meet 4 of Japan’s hottest online fashion malls

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.21

According to a recent study, the fashion and interior e-commerce market in Japan was about 636 billion yen (about $6.79 billion) in 2012, a 121.5% increase on last year. Many domestic apparel brands join fashion online malls instead of developing and running e-commerce sites on their own. And as a result we’re seeing lots of buzz around these fashion online malls. While it’s likely that brands will have their own e-commerce presences soon enough, the online fashion malls which are currently so popular also have intriguing plans for the future. Let’s take a closer look at a few of the major online fashion malls in Japan (in no particular order), as well as their upcoming plans. 1. Stylife ¶ Rakuten recently acquired Stylife for 1.1 billion yen (about $11,770,000), becoming the biggest shareholder in the company. This is a smart move by Rakuten as it eager to increase its reach into the fashion space. For a long time, what differentiated Stylife from other online fashion malls was its print catalogue, Look!s, that integrated with the online mall, although the company ceased publication of the print version in March of 2012. It is now available online as a web magazine. 2….

According to a recent study, the fashion and interior e-commerce market in Japan was about 636 billion yen (about $6.79 billion) in 2012, a 121.5% increase on last year. Many domestic apparel brands join fashion online malls instead of developing and running e-commerce sites on their own. And as a result we’re seeing lots of buzz around these fashion online malls. While it’s likely that brands will have their own e-commerce presences soon enough, the online fashion malls which are currently so popular also have intriguing plans for the future.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of the major online fashion malls in Japan (in no particular order), as well as their upcoming plans.

1. Stylife ¶

Rakuten recently acquired Stylife for 1.1 billion yen (about $11,770,000), becoming the biggest shareholder in the company. This is a smart move by Rakuten as it eager to increase its reach into the fashion space.

For a long time, what differentiated Stylife from other online fashion malls was its print catalogue, Look!s, that integrated with the online mall, although the company ceased publication of the print version in March of 2012. It is now available online as a web magazine.

2. Magaseek ¶

Just a month or so ago, mobile carrier NTT Docomo snatched up online fashion mall Magaseek, acquiring more than 41.67% of the company’s stock. Magaseek targets female mobile users in their 20s, and its previous owner was general trading company Itochu which still owns 25% of its shares. Similar to Rakuten, NTT Docomo’s plan is to solidify its competitiveness in fashion commerce by cooperating with Itochu, the largest general trade company in the textiles industry.

3. FashionWalker ¶

FashionWalker is another online mall which has aspirations of expanding its business to the Asian market, most notably to Korea and Taiwan. To that end, back in November of 2012 it launched an fashion e-commerce service for Korea. Its parent company is ‘World’.

FashionWalker is more content-focused compared to other online malls, creating dedicated sections for fashion stylists to introduce their latest look-books, under the category of ‘Shibuya Style Village‘.

4. Zozotown ¶

Another fashion online mall that’s accelerating its business in the Asia region is Zozotown (operated by Start Today) which was founded way back in 2004. In addition to zozotown.jp which serves the Japanese market, the company also runs zozotown.com where items can be delivered to 82 countries. In addition to the global online mall, Zozotown will launch ZozoConnect on Feburary 28 where it will introduce international brands — especially brands from Asia — to the world. At the time of launch, the site will focus on five Korean brands, including Bratson.

This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan.

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Google Hangouts recruits Asian pop stars for new ‘A-Pop’ initiative

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.20

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market. The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout. On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout. Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple…

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market.

The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout.

On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout.

Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple in Shiba Park in front of the brightly lit Tokyo Tower. The spectacle was organized by mobile phone carrier au KDDI (TYO:9433) which turned the local area into a digital interactive theme park. 1,500 participants were able to manipulate taxis, water fountains, and street lights by using their smartphone as a remote control.

Google+ had 25 million users in Japan as of July 2011. The company’s celebrity-recruitment efforts first started in 2012, so the effect of such projects on growing its user base has yet to be fully realized. Stay tuned!

Her name is nearly impossible to pronounce, even for Japanese people. So don’t feel bad if you stumble! ↩

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Mixi tries again: New photo printing service ‘Nohana’ targets parents in Japan

SCORE 1,255

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.19

Japanese social network Mixi (TYO:2121) just launched a new photo service named Nohana (meaning ‘wild flowers’ in Japanese) targeting parents with small children. This move makes a lot of sense considering that the early users of the social network, which launched way back in 2000, are now a little older and likely to have children of their own. The app is surprisingly simple and is completely separate from Mixi proper. After signing up, you can invite your family members by entering their phone numbers. Once this is done, you can upload or take photos with the iOS app [1] and then every month users (in Japan) can receive a free (90 yen shipping fee not included) printed photo book. The first book of each month is always free, however each additional book costs 525 yen and there is free shipping for orders above 1,050 yen (about $11). Nohana is Mixi’s answer to our modern habit of frequent photo-taking, but never having enough time to organize and print them. With this solution, families can share their photos with grandparents or other relatives who may live far away. Mixi’s official total monthly active users was 14 million as of September 2012, with…

Japanese social network Mixi (TYO:2121) just launched a new photo service named Nohana (meaning ‘wild flowers’ in Japanese) targeting parents with small children. This move makes a lot of sense considering that the early users of the social network, which launched way back in 2000, are now a little older and likely to have children of their own.

The app is surprisingly simple and is completely separate from Mixi proper. After signing up, you can invite your family members by entering their phone numbers. Once this is done, you can upload or take photos with the iOS app [1] and then every month users (in Japan) can receive a free (90 yen shipping fee not included) printed photo book. The first book of each month is always free, however each additional book costs 525 yen and there is free shipping for orders above 1,050 yen (about $11).

Nohana is Mixi’s answer to our modern habit of frequent photo-taking, but never having enough time to organize and print them. With this solution, families can share their photos with grandparents or other relatives who may live far away.

Mixi’s official total monthly active users was 14 million as of September 2012, with about 8.6 million of those on smartphones (see interactive chart below). And the most active users on the social network are people in the 20 to 24 demographic accounting for almost 30% of the total users. That’s followed by users ages 25 to 29 at 20%, and 30 to 35 at 14%. Ostensibly many users from these segments should benefit greatly from a service like Nohana.

Mixi currently runs two major business: its social network, plus the online job posting site, Find Job. The company recently shut down its short-lived subscription fashion commerce, Petite Jete, which was targeting young female users. Under what was likely the correct assumption that young female struggled to find casual work fashion, the company did succeed in gaining over a million users. However, the business was not as big as they expected.

In Japan, the photo book market is getting pretty crowded with competitors from Fujifilm and startups like Tolot. Lets stay tuned to see if this new venture, Nohana, will go as they hope — or suffer the same sad fate as Petite Jete.

Download image version of chart

An Android version is coming later this spring ↩

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Japanese startups find creativity at Crowdworks

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.18

Crowdworks is the Japanese equivalent of design crowdsourcing sites like Logo Tournament or 99designs. It launched in March of 2012 and its total number of registered creators and engineers surpassed 7,000 in October of the same year. To date, more than 3,600 small businesses have used the site. Among the small businesses that leverage crowdsourcing, tech startups are apparently very active in using the service to create new logos and app icons. Here are some of the tech companies that have used Crowdworks for creative inspiration and what those winning designs look like. miil miil is basically a sort of Instagram for foodies. You can like and comment on each other’s food photos, and find out nearby restaurants and photos shared there. On Crowdworks, the startup asked for a new icon they could use for the app store, and paid 30,000 yen (about $320) to get the job done. 36 designs were submitted in total. Gunosy By looking at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, Gunosy curates news articles best suited for each user. The news can be viewed on the Gunosy website, received by email, or simply read in their app. The service launched in October of 2011 and gained…

Crowdworks is the Japanese equivalent of design crowdsourcing sites like Logo Tournament or 99designs. It launched in March of 2012 and its total number of registered creators and engineers surpassed 7,000 in October of the same year. To date, more than 3,600 small businesses have used the site.

Among the small businesses that leverage crowdsourcing, tech startups are apparently very active in using the service to create new logos and app icons. Here are some of the tech companies that have used Crowdworks for creative inspiration and what those winning designs look like.

miil

miil is basically a sort of Instagram for foodies. You can like and comment on each other’s food photos, and find out nearby restaurants and photos shared there.

On Crowdworks, the startup asked for a new icon they could use for the app store, and paid 30,000 yen (about $320) to get the job done. 36 designs were submitted in total.

Gunosy

By looking at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, Gunosy curates news articles best suited for each user. The news can be viewed on the Gunosy website, received by email, or simply read in their app. The service launched in October of 2011 and gained over 76,000 users as of this month.

Gunosy was looking for a cover image for their Facebook page and found one they liked from the 19 designs submitted. Considering the tech savvy user demographic, the very modern design really suits the brand.

Takumen

Takumen is an e-commerce service for well-known ramen spots all over Japan.

Takumen offered creators 20,000 yen (about $213) for a logo for a new ramen shop called Sakuta-ya. 34 different designs were submitted, and a very manly black and red logo won the competition.

Samurai International

The startup was seeking a logo for a new music application which has racked up over 2 million downloads to date. The app auto-plays selected music from YouTube, so it was essential that the logo reflects that connection with YouTube.

From the 18 submitted designs, the startup chose a very simple logo with a musical note.

Poica

Poica is a smartphone app that carries all of your point cards in one handy place. Readers may recall our video review of the app earlier this month.

The startup used Crowdworks to create introductory business cards to give out to people they meet. The 40,000 yen prize (about $426) was won with a simple white and green design, out of 15 designs.

Crowdworks recently partnered with Yahoo! Crowdsourcing this past January, teaming up to make the service the largest crowdsourcing site in Japan. Other small businesses are leveraging the site as well, including a local beer manufacturer in Atsugi. You can see some pretty labels for the new spring beer here.

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A tough-luck Japanese factory rebounds with an inspiring new side business

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.14

The economic crash of 2008 impacted business of all sizes, and a small auto parts and electronics processing factory in Osaka was no exception. Hiyoshi Packing Corporation, now a company of nine employees, suffered a big decrease in orders and was forced to cease a business partnership between its sister factory in California. The machines shut down, filling the factory with an overwhelming silence. In the midst of such crisis, what did the company do? They decided to create jobs on their own by leveraging their existing technology — but in a very different way. Working as a vendor for different manufacturers, Hinako Hara, the CEO of the company says that she had always wanted to create original products under the company’s name. They had the machines, facilities, and highly trained skills developed from fifty years of operation. A giant leap After careful consideration and many discussions, Hiyoshi ended up going in an entirely unexpected and very unconventional direction. They made business card cases which they named ‘harrytoree,’ meaning “stick” and “tear off” in Japanese. The product holds your business cards with an adhesive sticking area which can be used over and over. You simply tear off a new card…

The economic crash of 2008 impacted business of all sizes, and a small auto parts and electronics processing factory in Osaka was no exception. Hiyoshi Packing Corporation, now a company of nine employees, suffered a big decrease in orders and was forced to cease a business partnership between its sister factory in California. The machines shut down, filling the factory with an overwhelming silence. In the midst of such crisis, what did the company do? They decided to create jobs on their own by leveraging their existing technology — but in a very different way.

Working as a vendor for different manufacturers, Hinako Hara, the CEO of the company says that she had always wanted to create original products under the company’s name. They had the machines, facilities, and highly trained skills developed from fifty years of operation.

A giant leap

After careful consideration and many discussions, Hiyoshi ended up going in an entirely unexpected and very unconventional direction. They made business card cases which they named ‘harrytoree,’ meaning “stick” and “tear off” in Japanese. The product holds your business cards with an adhesive sticking area which can be used over and over. You simply tear off a new card whenever you need one. Check out the demo video below to see how it works for yourself.

The made-in-Japan product can be bought online through the harrytoree website for a price of 714 yen (or about $8), or you can find them on Amazon Japan. We’ll let you know if the product becomes available to oversea buyers.

From the design to colors and even to the marketing strategy, Hiyoshi Packing Corporation managed to do everything on its own. Hinako who inherited the current position from her father says that if it wasn’t for the economic crisis, harrytoree may never have been born. The case has even won an award at one of the largest exhibitions for stationary and paper products, the International Stationery and Office Products Fair Tokyo.

Applying highly trained skills and technologies in a completely new way is definitely exciting, and I hope to explore more examples like this one in the coming future.

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Just in time for Valentine’s Day: Bouque.me helps Japanese couples finance weddings

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.14

Online wedding services are pretty hot these days. Websites like Loverly, a sort of Pinterest for weddings, and wedding-themed blogs like StyleMePretty are gaining in popularity. Even in Japan, it seems that couples are exploring one-of-a-kind weddings instead of more traditional ones which can sometimes be a little mundane. But there is still a big problem that has yet to be solved. Many couples are giving up on the idea of having a wedding due to financial reasons. That’s according to the folks at Bouque.me, who just released their service today, on Valentine’s day. Bouque.me is a product from Samurai Incubate, and is basically a tip collecting platform to financially assist couples planning to wed. In 2011, the amount of couples who got married numbered around 700,000. But among those couples, only 55,000 celebrated with a wedding ceremony. On Bouque.me, couples are able to collect tips from their friends on different social networks and through email as well. By creating your own wedding page on the site and sharing the URL, friends and acquaintances can get involved. People can tip as much money as they want and even add a personal note for the couple. Japanese people are often very…

Online wedding services are pretty hot these days. Websites like Loverly, a sort of Pinterest for weddings, and wedding-themed blogs like StyleMePretty are gaining in popularity. Even in Japan, it seems that couples are exploring one-of-a-kind weddings instead of more traditional ones which can sometimes be a little mundane. But there is still a big problem that has yet to be solved. Many couples are giving up on the idea of having a wedding due to financial reasons. That’s according to the folks at Bouque.me, who just released their service today, on Valentine’s day.

Bouque.me is a product from Samurai Incubate, and is basically a tip collecting platform to financially assist couples planning to wed. In 2011, the amount of couples who got married numbered around 700,000. But among those couples, only 55,000 celebrated with a wedding ceremony.

On Bouque.me, couples are able to collect tips from their friends on different social networks and through email as well. By creating your own wedding page on the site and sharing the URL, friends and acquaintances can get involved. People can tip as much money as they want and even add a personal note for the couple.

Japanese people are often very careful about giving gifts, and it’s a very personal and important act. It will be interesting to see how people react to the very modern idea of giving money online. When I asked about this, a Samurai Incubate representative responded that the Bouque.me is more than just a money collecting platform. The site fosters communication between the couple and the giver, and it allows for friends who are unable to attend the wedding (maybe they live in a different area and can’t be there physically, for example) to get involved.

According to a recent survey on weddings, 58.2% of couples cite “expressing gratitude towards not just family, but also friends” as a big reason to have a wedding ceremony. Of those couples who gave up on having a wedding ceremony, 44% answered that they plan on having a wedding in the future. So there is a problem, but we’ll have to wait and see if Bouque.me is the answer people are looking for.

On a related note, it was just last week that we saw Yahoo Japan take a 10% stake in wedding site Minnano Wedding. That service has 1.1 million monthly visitors, as well as more than 200,000 posts about 5,000 wedding places in Japan.

Yukari Mitsuhashi

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