This past March saw the three year anniversary of the tragic 3.11 earthquake here in Japan. At the time, Line Corporation released a set of stickers to sell on its platform, drawn by kids from the affected regions. The set of 24 stickers, pictured below, were to be sold for 100 yen (or about $1) with proceeds going towards ongoing recovery efforts. According to japan.internet.com this evening, that set of stickers has now raised over 38 million yen (about $370,000) in the six short weeks that they have been available for purchase. Line apparently doesn’t make any money from this, taking only what it needs to handle transaction fees on Apple and Google app stores. The stickers can still be purchased if you’d like to do so, as they’ll be available until September 10 of this year. Line did something similar to assist with Typhoon Haiyan relief in the Philippines last year, raising over $500,000 in that effort. via japan.internet.com
This past March saw the three year anniversary of the tragic 3.11 earthquake here in Japan. At the time, Line Corporation released a set of stickers to sell on its platform, drawn by kids from the affected regions. The set of 24 stickers, pictured below, were to be sold for 100 yen (or about $1) with proceeds going towards ongoing recovery efforts.
According to japan.internet.com this evening, that set of stickers has now raised over 38 million yen (about $370,000) in the six short weeks that they have been available for purchase. Line apparently doesn’t make any money from this, taking only what it needs to handle transaction fees on Apple and Google app stores.
The stickers can still be purchased if you’d like to do so, as they’ll be available until September 10 of this year.
Line did something similar to assist with Typhoon Haiyan relief in the Philippines last year, raising over $500,000 in that effort.
Beatrobo Inc. has announced today that it has raised $1.1 million from Lawson HMV Entertainment and Genuine Startups, in order to further develop and expand its PlugAir business [1]. Our regular readers are likely aware that Beatrobo, in addition to operating a really fun streaming music service, has developed its PlugAir technology that can be used to share and distribute digital content. It doesn’t have to be music, but it could also be used to share videos or ebooks, for example. This partnership with Lawson, who is very active in the entertainment and ticketing business, is an intriguing twist in Beatrobo’s progression. The startup’s CEO and founder Hiroshi Asaeda explained to us how that tie-up came about: They have connections to the entertainment business, and a channel for distribution, HMV Japan and their ten thousand stores. One of our focuses was to find a distribution channel because our product is physical. Our initial idea was to distribute it at concerts like merchandise, and when we were talking to [Lawson HMV Entertainment], they eventually said they’d invest in us. Asaeda elaborates that Beatrobo will, in fact, license their patent to Lawson so that they can manufacture the device. Obviously if the…
Beatrobo Inc. has announced today that it has raised $1.1 million from Lawson HMV Entertainment and Genuine Startups, in order to further develop and expand its PlugAir business [1]. Our regular readers are likely aware that Beatrobo, in addition to operating a really fun streaming music service, has developed its PlugAir technology that can be used to share and distribute digital content. It doesn’t have to be music, but it could also be used to share videos or ebooks, for example.
This partnership with Lawson, who is very active in the entertainment and ticketing business, is an intriguing twist in Beatrobo’s progression. The startup’s CEO and founder Hiroshi Asaeda explained to us how that tie-up came about:
They have connections to the entertainment business, and a channel for distribution, HMV Japan and their ten thousand stores. One of our focuses was to find a distribution channel because our product is physical. Our initial idea was to distribute it at concerts like merchandise, and when we were talking to [Lawson HMV Entertainment], they eventually said they’d invest in us.
Asaeda elaborates that Beatrobo will, in fact, license their patent to Lawson so that they can manufacture the device. Obviously if the startup were to manufacture PlugAir devices on their own, they’d burn through their funding very, very quickly. So this arrangement brings assistance on the manufacturing side, and also assures reasonably widespread use of the app, which is required by anyone who uses a PlugAir device in order to pull content from the cloud.
A physical, digital key
As you can see in the video below, using PlugAir is almost the same sort of experience as using a USB key. But the technology doesn’t actually store content on the device. As I understand it, it instead receives soundwaves from your phone which are then turned into electric power, launching the device’s microcontroller to get its serial number [2]. They then send that data back to the phone using its microphone input, which unlocks access to cloud content.
I asked Asaeda about the challenge of making people understand that a smartphone’s headphone jack can be used in this way. He affirmed that this indeed an critical challenge:
That’s our goal for this whole year. Techy people will think if it is a gadget that goes in the earphone jack, then it’s a credit card reader. We need to change the whole idea of the earphone jack, and make people understand that you can get content from there. That’s why we started with entertainment. But some people have even asked about medical use, and storing patient or prescription information. It’s a key.
If you think about what Beatrobo has done here, they’ve quite elegantly made it possible for physical limitations to be applied to digital content. I emphasize the word possible here, because whether or not those limitations are actually applied is a decision that the content provider will make themselves. PlugAir could enable limitless copying to your friends’ smartphones, or it could be limited to, for example, giving your friends 90 second samples that expire in 24 hours. Sharing could even be incentivized, with musicians giving you a bonus track if you share samples with three friends.
Asaeda explained what they learned from working with Linkin Park using PlugAir over the past year:
What I noticed from Linkin Park that they didn’t really want the email addresses of fans, but a rather contact point where fans can buy or experience their content.
So if you think of PlugAir as a fan community device, (paying) members of a fan club could receive updated content over and over again in the future. I understand that push notifications will be on the way soon, which will enable fans to stay up to date with the latest content.
There’s a ton of potential in this idea, and Asaeda says flat out that his ultimate goal is to replace the CD:
We want to change music, we love it. Somebody needs to change the industry. Nobody is trying, so I’m going to do it.
The Linkin Park PlugAir
Beatrobo will soon move to a new office. Asaeda nice enough to meet with me as he was packing up his old office.
Lawson HMV Entertainment is one of the three main businesses of Lawson’s larger holding company, which of course, includes its convenience store business. Genuine Startup is a fund spun off from Movida Japan. ↩
There’s also a security chip onboard to prevent copying the device. ↩
See the original article written in Japanese Tokyo-based Metaps has launched on online payment platform called Spike, releasing it in open beta here in Japan. Spike is a web-based payment solution, and business users can start using it just by embedding a unique URL on their own website. Where it differs from similar services is in its business model. Payment systems typically charge user fees, like a starting fee or a transaction fee. But Spike is instead using a freemium model. Currently they have a free plan and a business premium plan. For the free plan, there is no initial fee, monthly fee, or commission. Subscribers on this plan can transact up to 1 million yen ($10,000) per month. For the business premium plan, the monthly fee is 3000 yen ($30), with no commission charged until you transact more than 10 million yen ($10,000). Beyond that there’s a 2.5% commission and 30 yen ($0.03) charged per transaction. For this open beta version, only the free plan is available. There are plans to provide an API for business premium subscribers later. I spoke to the CEO of Metaps, Katsuaki Sato, to learn more about this launch. My understanding is that you…
Tokyo-based Metaps has launched on online payment platform called Spike, releasing it in open beta here in Japan. Spike is a web-based payment solution, and business users can start using it just by embedding a unique URL on their own website. Where it differs from similar services is in its business model.
Payment systems typically charge user fees, like a starting fee or a transaction fee. But Spike is instead using a freemium model. Currently they have a free plan and a business premium plan. For the free plan, there is no initial fee, monthly fee, or commission. Subscribers on this plan can transact up to 1 million yen ($10,000) per month.
For the business premium plan, the monthly fee is 3000 yen ($30), with no commission charged until you transact more than 10 million yen ($10,000). Beyond that there’s a 2.5% commission and 30 yen ($0.03) charged per transaction. For this open beta version, only the free plan is available. There are plans to provide an API for business premium subscribers later.
I spoke to the CEO of Metaps, Katsuaki Sato, to learn more about this launch.
My understanding is that you are trying to innovate upon the existing business model in this field, sort of like PayPal did, rather than targeting developers by offering APIs like Stripe or Braintree. Is that correct?
Sato: Our target is those who want to use a payment solution but don’t know how to code. I am not really looking at PayPal, but our target customers could include people who have already tried out PayPal or think it’s is a bit too complicated to use.
Your announcement says that you will offer the starter plan completely free. Does this mean there will be no limit on the amount of the transactions in the future?
Sato: As we expand the service, we plan to raise the maximum transaction amount, and ultimately get rid of that limit. What I am trying to do is recreate a real-life economy using an internet payment solution.
That’s very ambitious. You have different target demographics for the two plans, individual freelancers and small businesses. How will you set the boundary between these two?
Sato: I don’t have any specific boundary between them, but I think of businesses who transact tens of millions yen (tens of thousands dollars) monthly, seed or early-stage startups, as middle-sized. We do plan to provide additional value like APIs for business-premium subscribers.
I see. When will you start offering the business-premium plan?
Sato: We plan to start running a pilot program in May of 2014 and launch it officially this summer.
Thank you very much.
In Japan, there are smartphone payments services like Square and Coiney, and payment solutions that focus on providing APIs, like WebPay. So competition in this area is becoming fierce. Spike’s vision of having no fees for starters has drawn a lot of attention. If it really works out, I think many businesses will use it.
Metaps core business is its Android monetization platform. Founded in 2007, the company now has in eight offices around the world. According to Sato, the number of game developer clients is now a few thousand, and the total number of downloaded Android apps that implement the SDK is between 1.2 and 1.3 billion. Sato also mentioned that 20 to 30 percent of the company’s sales are from the Japanese market, with the rest from China and the East Asian market.
Thanks astute Redditor fodawim for pointing out a folder full of translated command strings in Japanese in the GlassVoice apk file (see image below). There’s no word one when Google Glass might come to Japan of course, but this is an indication that Japan will be among the first countries. Considering Google’s recent Maps/Pokemon experiment, this bodes well for my dream of a real-life Pokemon game! On the other hand, we can expect some controversy to surround Glass whenever it does get here, in much the same way that smartphone cameras have been adjusted to combat pervy pictures on trains. Reddit, via Appllio
On the other hand, we can expect some controversy to surround Glass whenever it does get here, in much the same way that smartphone cameras have been adjusted to combat pervy pictures on trains.
Line has just opened up its Creators Market (at creator.line.me), allowing users to register and submit stickers for review as of today. If Line approves your submission, then they will go on sale in May. According to the company’s announcement, users in Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand will be able to purchase at that time, with plans for more regions to come in the future. A set of 40 stickers will sell for 100 yen (or about a dollar), of which 50% goes to the creator. Line is already making a fortune from stickers, as we have pointed out before, and this new initiative will boost that revenue stream even more, and spur more user engagement, Line
Line has just opened up its Creators Market (at creator.line.me), allowing users to register and submit stickers for review as of today. If Line approves your submission, then they will go on sale in May. According to the company’s announcement, users in Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand will be able to purchase at that time, with plans for more regions to come in the future.
A set of 40 stickers will sell for 100 yen (or about a dollar), of which 50% goes to the creator. Line is already making a fortune from stickers, as we have pointed out before, and this new initiative will boost that revenue stream even more, and spur more user engagement,
Singapore-based Viddsee, the operator of an online platform that showcases short films from Asia, announced this week that it has surpassed five million unique viewers since launching in February 2013. The company has also rolled out an editorial feature called Viddsee Buzz, which is a sort of blog/news channel that highlights selected films with greater context. Viddsee aims to bring Asian short films to global audiences, and it will be interesting to see how it can grow from here. I don’t think this genre benefits from a wide fan base as a startup like Tokyo Otaku Mode (which showcases just anime, manga, and cosplay), but no doubt there are many people who wish to explore Asian films in depth, and so its good to have a centralized repository like this on the web. The service has a strong following over on its Facebook fan page so far, with over 42,000 fans. That growth, we understand, has been entirely organic. Viddsee features a selection of video channels, many of which have a regional focus, including Node Japan, which highlights movies from Keio Media Design’s indie film portal, Node.
Singapore-based Viddsee, the operator of an online platform that showcases short films from Asia, announced this week that it has surpassed five million unique viewers since launching in February 2013. The company has also rolled out an editorial feature called Viddsee Buzz, which is a sort of blog/news channel that highlights selected films with greater context.
Viddsee aims to bring Asian short films to global audiences, and it will be interesting to see how it can grow from here. I don’t think this genre benefits from a wide fan base as a startup like Tokyo Otaku Mode (which showcases just anime, manga, and cosplay), but no doubt there are many people who wish to explore Asian films in depth, and so its good to have a centralized repository like this on the web.
The service has a strong following over on its Facebook fan page so far, with over 42,000 fans. That growth, we understand, has been entirely organic.
Viddsee features a selection of video channels, many of which have a regional focus, including Node Japan, which highlights movies from Keio Media Design’s indie film portal, Node.
See the original article written in Japanese Bento.jp, a new lunch delivery service for busy business people, launched last week. Now with just a few taps on your smartphone, you can get your freshly made bento box lunch [1] delivered in around 20 minutes, at a costs of 800 yen ($8) including the delivery fee. I interviewed the company’s CEO Atsumasa Kobayashi, who previously worked in Itokuro (a company later transferred to KLab), involved in launching its social games division and Shanghai branch office. He came back to Japan in 2013 and founded Bento.jp Inc this past January. Currently, he runs the company, along with engineer Masahiro Saito. He explains coming up with the idea for the service through his own experience. It was a time when I was so busy that I didn’t have many other choices than to go to convenience stores to get lunch to bring back to the office. I wished I had more options. I’d like to provide more alternatives for those who feel the same way, bringing some innovation to the existing lunch market which hasn’t changed in a long time. How is Bento.jp different from other food delivery services? The big difference is…
Bento.jp, a new lunch delivery service for busy business people, launched last week. Now with just a few taps on your smartphone, you can get your freshly made bento box lunch [1] delivered in around 20 minutes, at a costs of 800 yen ($8) including the delivery fee.
I interviewed the company’s CEO Atsumasa Kobayashi, who previously worked in Itokuro (a company later transferred to KLab), involved in launching its social games division and Shanghai branch office. He came back to Japan in 2013 and founded Bento.jp Inc this past January. Currently, he runs the company, along with engineer Masahiro Saito. He explains coming up with the idea for the service through his own experience.
It was a time when I was so busy that I didn’t have many other choices than to go to convenience stores to get lunch to bring back to the office. I wished I had more options. I’d like to provide more alternatives for those who feel the same way, bringing some innovation to the existing lunch market which hasn’t changed in a long time.
How is Bento.jp different from other food delivery services? The big difference is its convenience, a sort of Uber – but for lunches. Bento.jp reminds me of UberRUSH, a new service recently launched by Uber, which delivers packages on foot or by bike in New York city. Kobayashi adds:
Like Amazon, more and more companies are starting to deliver orders on the same day or the following day. What’s the next step? I’m sure more companies will try to deliver within hours, and then in less than an hour. Bento.jp wants to meet that expectation and bring customers what they want soon after they want it.
The bento that the company currently offers is the kind most people are familiar with, with things like rice and fried chicken. Their bento lineup is created by a chef with experience at the Michelin-starred French restaurant Chez Naka. The company plans to add more quality Bento to this lineup in the future.
Bento.jp first looks to achieve stable sales of about 1000 bento a day. And while the delivery area is currently limited to Shibuya, Dogenzaka and Roppongi, it aims to expand to other busy area later on.
The number of startups offering food-related services are growing around the world. If a company like Bento.jp can successfully respond to the customers’ needs, I believe there is a lot of potential to win repeat customers.
If you work in the area where service is available, do give Bento.jp a try. You can download the app for free from the App Store.
A bento lunch is a Japanese take-out box packed with rice and variety of side dishes, usually for one person. ↩
See the original article written in Japanese Cookpad, the Japanese online recipe platform, is largely recognized as a “user first” service. The Cookpad app recently surpassed 20 million downloads, and their latest data shows nearly 70% of access to the service comes from smartphones. This past February, the company built a mobile-first team. Among the company’s 70 engineers, about 10% joined the team. Aside from app development and operations, the company is pushing towards a mobile-first policy, encouraging web engineers to focus on mobile-related work. I spoke with Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi, who have just joined this mobile-first team. Both have experience developing Android apps, and both came to Cookpad less than a year ago. The development of the Android app started within the device division of the media department, which later turned into the mobile-first team. The project started in October of last year, and after half a year of development, the Android app officially launched this past March. The mobile version of Cookpad originally started as a website formatted for smartphones. At that time, even though the division had dozens of web engineers, it had only one Android engineer. To adapt to the increasing number of users…
Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi from the mobile-first team
Cookpad, the Japanese online recipe platform, is largely recognized as a “user first” service. The Cookpad app recently surpassed 20 million downloads, and their latest data shows nearly 70% of access to the service comes from smartphones.
This past February, the company built a mobile-first team. Among the company’s 70 engineers, about 10% joined the team. Aside from app development and operations, the company is pushing towards a mobile-first policy, encouraging web engineers to focus on mobile-related work.
I spoke with Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi, who have just joined this mobile-first team. Both have experience developing Android apps, and both came to Cookpad less than a year ago.
The development of the Android app started within the device division of the media department, which later turned into the mobile-first team. The project started in October of last year, and after half a year of development, the Android app officially launched this past March.
The mobile version of Cookpad originally started as a website formatted for smartphones. At that time, even though the division had dozens of web engineers, it had only one Android engineer. To adapt to the increasing number of users on smartphones, it was decided to offer Cookpad as a native app.
The team of four (three Android engineers and one designer) worked together to develop the Android app. They collaborated on the app’s UI and usability, using the engineer’s knowledge of things like OS guidelines. Based on the mockup created by the designer, they worked towards creating the best app they could.
Consistent UX/UI
The iOS app for Cookpad had been already released, so the team had to be careful that the Android app design would not be influenced too much by that. To ensure that the app was easy to use, the team continued releasing small, incremental updates. One such update, for example, had the menu icon located in the left-top corner. The team learned that some users don’t recognize that the icon can be tapped to display a menu, and so they they implemented a tutorial message a the initial log-in to address the issue.
Takiguchi: It took much time to figure out to what extent the usability and UI of our iOS and Android apps should be unified. Many people say there should be a consistent user experience for iOS and Android, and the UI should be designed differently. But that’s a very difficult thing to do.
Through these small improvements, eventually the amount of time users spent on the Android app increased 30% more than they had seen with the previous version, which looked more like the service’s web interface. Swifter movement through content inside the app and improved tab display (such as today’s recipe and top recipe) also contributed much to this success. Yagi explained that one of the most important things to keep in mind during this kind of development is to keep asking if a feature is really necessary, and if it is easy to use.
Results that get attention
Cookpad has an internal blog where members share ideas. Since last November the company has also organized a meeting called Potechi where engineers outside and inside the company get together to share technical tips. Potechi takes place every week within the company, and every month for the external meet. Each iOS or Android engineer is given five minutes to present their tips.
Yagi: Engineers at Cookpad are all highly motivated and have great technical skills. When we find a problem, we all do our best to solve it.
Takiguchi: Our CEO often says that each member has to keep a career goal in our mind when we work. He says we should create results that will attract headhunters’ attention.
Cookpad currently look for mobile engineers. To work on the mobile-first team, the most important thing is to have strong passion for app development rather than technical skills and experiences.
Yagi: We look to see if the candidate codes at home or outside the work place. We look for someone who looks like they cannot help but code at any occasion.
The value of female engineers
At present, all members of mobile-first team are men. Even in the company as a whole, female engineers amount to only 10% of the total. Engineers are expected to see things from the user’s perspective in order to find the best usability and UI by working with designers. Therefore, they hope they can add a force of female engineers as well.
Yagi: We interview users and hear their opinion. But when we reflect on app design, we might need to filter out perspectives that come from the male point of view. I believe that if the engineer is a woman, then it can effect the app design a lot. So we really hope female engineers can join our team.
It is not going to far to say that a major service like Cookpad could set the standard for app usability and UI. If you are passionate about creating apps, you might want to join their Potechi meeting. The next one takes place on May 14th.
If you’re starting to tire of seeing Line’s characters all over the place here in Japan, I have some bad news for you. Line is teaming up with fashion retailer Uniqlo to offer Line Character branded t-shirts as part of the new Uniqlo t-shirt (UT) line-up [1]. In my view, Uniqlo lends some much-needed credibility to Line’s characters, putting them alongside far more established brands like Hello Kitty and Disney. The shirts are on sale now for the very affordable price of 943 yen (or just over $9). Check out Uniqlo’s promo video for the new 2014 line-up below, including the new Line t-shirts about halfway through. (It’s an unlisted video, so if this embed suddenly stops working, you know why!) Via news.ameba.jp As far as I can tell, this is just for Uniqlo stores in Japan. I can’t find the Line t-shirts on the Uniqlo USA website. ↩
If you’re starting to tire of seeing Line’s characters all over the place here in Japan, I have some bad news for you. Line is teaming up with fashion retailer Uniqlo to offer Line Character branded t-shirts as part of the new Uniqlo t-shirt (UT) line-up [1].
In my view, Uniqlo lends some much-needed credibility to Line’s characters, putting them alongside far more established brands like Hello Kitty and Disney. The shirts are on sale now for the very affordable price of 943 yen (or just over $9).
Check out Uniqlo’s promo video for the new 2014 line-up below, including the new Line t-shirts about halfway through. (It’s an unlisted video, so if this embed suddenly stops working, you know why!)
With its new 4.2.0 Android update today, Japanese messaging app Line rolled out something that it’s calling ‘Sticons’. The company says that these can be used like emoticons inline in text messages, and also as the sort of larger stickers that current users of the service are already familiar with. You can read more about this new feature over on the Line blog.
With its new 4.2.0 Android update today, Japanese messaging app Line rolled out something that it’s calling ‘Sticons’. The company says that these can be used like emoticons inline in text messages, and also as the sort of larger stickers that current users of the service are already familiar with.
Rick Martin
Takeshi Hirano
Yukari Mitsuhashi
