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Fill out forms fast with beautifully designed Japanese stamp

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.11.06

There are a growing number of crowdsourcing sites here in Japan. Kibidango is one of them. Its name is inspired by a famous story that most Japanese people have read at least once growing. The main character Momotaro discovers and befriends different animals on his way to fighting a demon. On the Kibidango platform, project owners can find supporters to pursue their goals. One popular project on the platform recently is Inro, an unusual product that is perhaps best described as a reversible mobile stamp. The owner of the project, Tatsuhiro Onoe, runs an online stamp shop. His product was born to solve a problem that he often encoutered when staying at hotels. Many hotels in Japan still require guests to fill in their names and home addresses on printed forms. This is a time-consuming process especially if you’re a frequent traveler. Onoe was also not so confident about his hand-writing. He initially came up with this idea three years ago and now the product is finally ready to be mass produced to make people’s lives a little easier. Inro can be carried around in your shirt pocket, and in contrast to typical stamps, it is very fashionable like a…

There are a growing number of crowdsourcing sites here in Japan. Kibidango is one of them. Its name is inspired by a famous story that most Japanese people have read at least once growing. The main character Momotaro discovers and befriends different animals on his way to fighting a demon. On the Kibidango platform, project owners can find supporters to pursue their goals.

One popular project on the platform recently is Inro, an unusual product that is perhaps best described as a reversible mobile stamp. The owner of the project, Tatsuhiro Onoe, runs an online stamp shop. His product was born to solve a problem that he often encoutered when staying at hotels.

Many hotels in Japan still require guests to fill in their names and home addresses on printed forms. This is a time-consuming process especially if you’re a frequent traveler. Onoe was also not so confident about his hand-writing. He initially came up with this idea three years ago and now the product is finally ready to be mass produced to make people’s lives a little easier.

Inro can be carried around in your shirt pocket, and in contrast to typical stamps, it is very fashionable like a business card case. The product was designed by Tent, which we have written about in a previous article. The resulting product looks slick with much attention to detail. The grip of the stamp is smooth, and the round-corners are created by advanced precision mechanical equipment typically used in auto design.

With an accompanying leather case, the portable two-sided stamp is available for 7,000 yen (or about $71). The total sum that the project is looking for is 700,000 yen (about $7,100), and so far it has gathered 577,760 yen with five days still to go.

You can learn more about the project in the video below.

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Kawara: A made-in-Japan news reader for the global market

Rick Martin 2013.11.06

A few weeks back we told you about a fun Japanese photo app called Kawaiit which helps you rank cute photos. That app was the brainchild of Tokyo-based Jig.jp, a company that is increasingly looking to audiences abroad for its smartphone services. It’s latest offering, a mobile news reader application called Kawara, is launching today, now available as a free download for iOS. According to the announcement, the app’s name comes from the word Kawaraban, a newspaper from Japan’s Edo Period. The app is pretty simple to use, with preferences that allow you to specify which region’s news you’d like to read. Available regions include Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, and the US. The language of the news updates you read is dependent on this selection [1]. Once you choose your locale, you can further customize by arranging sections (Sports, Business, Entertainment, Technology, etc.) to suit your preference. Regrettably, the customization appears to end there. This is not an RSS reader, so you can’t input your own sources, nor is it a social service like Gunosy. But for a casual news reader it looks perfectly fine. There is a very handy autoplay function that you…

A few weeks back we told you about a fun Japanese photo app called Kawaiit which helps you rank cute photos. That app was the brainchild of Tokyo-based Jig.jp, a company that is increasingly looking to audiences abroad for its smartphone services. It’s latest offering, a mobile news reader application called Kawara, is launching today, now available as a free download for iOS. According to the announcement, the app’s name comes from the word Kawaraban, a newspaper from Japan’s Edo Period.

The app is pretty simple to use, with preferences that allow you to specify which region’s news you’d like to read. Available regions include Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, and the US. The language of the news updates you read is dependent on this selection [1].

Once you choose your locale, you can further customize by arranging sections (Sports, Business, Entertainment, Technology, etc.) to suit your preference.

Regrettably, the customization appears to end there. This is not an RSS reader, so you can’t input your own sources, nor is it a social service like Gunosy. But for a casual news reader it looks perfectly fine. There is a very handy autoplay function that you can trigger simply by setting your device in landscape mode [2]. In this way, it does make a nice little desktop companion to place alongside your regular work area.

Other interesting features include the ability to expand or contract the size of news update panels shown on your screen, as well as a clip feature that lets you flag certain articles for easy access later. Social sharing is also built into Kawara.

Overall, it’s a very simple but useful reader application. And if you need something to keep you updated at your desk-side while you work, it’s not a bad addition to your iPhone or iPad.

I’m not certain where the content is coming from, but it appears to be Google News. I’ve inquired with Jig.jp and will update if I hear more details. Update: It is. ↩
This autoplay feature is one that I really enjoyed in the Trickle Twitter app before it got all crashy and unusable. But I wish more Twitter apps and news readers would implement this. ↩

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Tokyo Office Tour: SpinningWorks wants to bring bookworms back to offline bookstores

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.06

SpinningWorks is a Tokyo-based startup that has been involved in providing a variety of web services since 2010. Among its past services is Qlippy, an SDK for adding social functions to various e-book reader apps and platforms. It raised 41 million yen (approximately $535,000 at that time) from several Japanese investment firms in October of 2011. I recently visited to see Yoichi Shirakata, the founder/CEO of SpinningWorks, and asked him what they are working on these days [1]. In addition to providing the Qlippy SDK service, the company launched a new service called TakeStock almost one year ago. It collects inventory updates on books from major bookstores all across the country, and lets you know where you can buy your favorite book in your neighborhood. He explained: There are almost 14,000 bookstores in Japan. Our service lets you to check inventory updates from 1,400 bookstores, which accounts for almost 40% of all sales in online and offline bookstores. We know the majority of our userbase uses Internet Explorer, which indicates our service is being used by the average consumer rather than especially tech-savvy people. Some users are willing to buy online, but others want to compare with other items or…

SpinningWorks is a Tokyo-based startup that has been involved in providing a variety of web services since 2010. Among its past services is Qlippy, an SDK for adding social functions to various e-book reader apps and platforms. It raised 41 million yen (approximately $535,000 at that time) from several Japanese investment firms in October of 2011.

I recently visited to see Yoichi Shirakata, the founder/CEO of SpinningWorks, and asked him what they are working on these days [1].

In addition to providing the Qlippy SDK service, the company launched a new service called TakeStock almost one year ago. It collects inventory updates on books from major bookstores all across the country, and lets you know where you can buy your favorite book in your neighborhood. He explained:

There are almost 14,000 bookstores in Japan. Our service lets you to check inventory updates from 1,400 bookstores, which accounts for almost 40% of all sales in online and offline bookstores. We know the majority of our userbase uses Internet Explorer, which indicates our service is being used by the average consumer rather than especially tech-savvy people.

Some users are willing to buy online, but others want to compare with other items or have a look before buying.

When you look for a book to buy, our service helps you buy it online as well as offline. If you prefer not to wait for something to be delivered, our service lets you know where you can buy it right away at a place nearby. In this way, we can present consumers other retailers with e-commerce giants like Amazon or Rakuten in line as their options.

The company started its service focusing on books, since the market volume in Japan is said to be as much as 1.9 trillion yen (approximately $19 billion). Every single title has a unique code (ISBN), which makes the process easier to systemize than other markets such as fashion apparel. In Japan, almost all books are sold at the listed prices at almost all stores, so consumers can choose to buy solely based on their conveniences.

Shirakata revealed that the Japanese e-commerce market accounts for only 2.8% of all commercial activities here in the country, which indicates it still has much room to grow [2]. In the future, by enhancing the services beyond book distribution, he expects to help more offline businesses find potential customers, giving them a chance to buy things they can’t find online.

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Website translation tool WorldJumper launches freemium version

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.06

See the original post in Japanese. WorldJumper provides website translation services for affordable rates by making the most of a combination of machine translation, human translation, and a database of past translation results. Tokyo-based Yaraku, the startup behind the service, announced today it has launched a freemium version of the service that allows you to translate your website for free. With this new version, the company is encouraging more hotels or exporters to create websites in foreign languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese). Our readers may recall the company raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. It also partnered with crowdsourced translation service Conyac back in September. Unlike conventional translation services, WorldJumper outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. In this way, it helps keep translation costs down while still improving quality over time. The freemium version does have some limitations however, such no customer support and ads inserted in the translated pages. If you want to polish the quality of the results, you can order a fully human translation for a fee. The company expects to…

See the original post in Japanese.

WorldJumper provides website translation services for affordable rates by making the most of a combination of machine translation, human translation, and a database of past translation results. Tokyo-based Yaraku, the startup behind the service, announced today it has launched a freemium version of the service that allows you to translate your website for free.

With this new version, the company is encouraging more hotels or exporters to create websites in foreign languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese).

Our readers may recall the company raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. It also partnered with crowdsourced translation service Conyac back in September. Unlike conventional translation services, WorldJumper outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. In this way, it helps keep translation costs down while still improving quality over time.

The freemium version does have some limitations however, such no customer support and ads inserted in the translated pages. If you want to polish the quality of the results, you can order a fully human translation for a fee.

The company expects to see over 10,000 websites using the service by next April. We hope it can help many startups here in Japan reach out to global markets.

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How to turn your iPhone into a retro television on the cheap

Rick Martin 2013.11.05

One of my favorite things about Japan is the abundance of creative gadget and accessory makers here. Among the more interesting ones is Hashy Topin, and this year the company is selling a very cheap but intriguing way to make watching movies on your iPhone a little bit easier. Meet ‘Telephone Vision’, a fun screen magnification accessory that will give you a 1.8x view of your smartphone screen. The kit comes with a small stand for your phone, over which you can then place the cardboard television cover. This is designed to mimic a traditional television, with buttons and a mock speaker (holes!). But the transparent acrylic screen does make your picture bigger and easier to see, which is the main attraction here. Now of course, the majority of us would not seriously use such a novelty for repeated media viewing, but selling for just 650 yen (a little more than $6) this Telephone Vision kit makes for a really fun gift, especially for kids who might want their own TV in their room. To get a closer look at the Telephone Vision kit, check out the video below from YouTuber Ayako Sato (@ksorano), which demonstrates how it is put…

One of my favorite things about Japan is the abundance of creative gadget and accessory makers here. Among the more interesting ones is Hashy Topin, and this year the company is selling a very cheap but intriguing way to make watching movies on your iPhone a little bit easier.

Meet ‘Telephone Vision’, a fun screen magnification accessory that will give you a 1.8x view of your smartphone screen. The kit comes with a small stand for your phone, over which you can then place the cardboard television cover. This is designed to mimic a traditional television, with buttons and a mock speaker (holes!). But the transparent acrylic screen does make your picture bigger and easier to see, which is the main attraction here.

Now of course, the majority of us would not seriously use such a novelty for repeated media viewing, but selling for just 650 yen (a little more than $6) this Telephone Vision kit makes for a really fun gift, especially for kids who might want their own TV in their room.

To get a closer look at the Telephone Vision kit, check out the video below from YouTuber Ayako Sato (@ksorano), which demonstrates how it is put together.

Hashy Topin really likes to use iPhones to turn back the clock in this way. Back in 2010 they featured a dock/charger combo that let you convert you iPhone into a conventional telephone.

Japan does fun novelty gifts like this incredibly well, and if you happen to pass through the country in your travels, do drop in on the nearest Tokyu Hands store for lots more disposable innovations like this one! [Via DG Freaks]

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Japan’s Meetrip acquired by social game developer Donuts, relocates to Bangkok

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.05

Meetrip is a service that gives you a chance to discover authentic travel experiences arranged by locals in 14 cities across Asia. Tokyo-based Duckdive, the startup behind the service, announced today that it is to be acquired by Tokyo-based social gaming developer Donuts for a undisclosed sum. The latter previously acquired Social Lunch, a website that helps students find jobs. Coinciding with this announcement, the startup revealed that it will relocate its base from Tokyo to Bangkok, where the gaming company has a development center. The startup was launched back in June by Takashi Kiyama and his co-founder Nobuhiro Ariyasu, who recently sold private lesson portal Cyta.jp to Cookpad for over 1 billion yen. In this space, we’ve seen more than a few travel discovery sites from Japan, such as KitchHike, Voyagin, and Trippiece.

Meetrip is a service that gives you a chance to discover authentic travel experiences arranged by locals in 14 cities across Asia. Tokyo-based Duckdive, the startup behind the service, announced today that it is to be acquired by Tokyo-based social gaming developer Donuts for a undisclosed sum. The latter previously acquired Social Lunch, a website that helps students find jobs.

Coinciding with this announcement, the startup revealed that it will relocate its base from Tokyo to Bangkok, where the gaming company has a development center. The startup was launched back in June by Takashi Kiyama and his co-founder Nobuhiro Ariyasu, who recently sold private lesson portal Cyta.jp to Cookpad for over 1 billion yen.

In this space, we’ve seen more than a few travel discovery sites from Japan, such as KitchHike, Voyagin, and Trippiece.

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Another Finnish collaboration for Japan’s GungHo: Angry Birds coming to Puzzle & Dragons

Rick Martin 2013.11.05

And the collaborations keep on coming for Japanese hit game Puzzle & Dragons. Having already partnered successfully with Supercell on Clash of Clans, it has been announced that GungHo Online Entertainment will now work with the other Finnish mobile gaming giant Rovio, bringing Angry Birds characters into Puzzle & Dragons. The campaign will run from November 18 to December 1st. Blogger Chiyo Komoriya points out that Rovio still isn’t very popular here in Japan, largely due to competition from strong character brands like Line and Nameco. When we spoke with Rovio representatives here in Tokyo earlier in the year, they emphasized a slow-and-steady, long term strategy, with the goal of learning the market and partnering with local companies like Sanrio, the maker of Hello Kitty. So exactly how will Angry Birds look in P&D? Rovio has announced that they will be asking fans for their input on that point. They’re asking fans to graphically answer the question “What if the Angry Birds showed up in the world of Puzzle & Dragons?” Check out Rovio’s blog post for more details. The tie-up with Puzzle & Dragons will certainly help give their games some visibility in the short term here in Japan….

And the collaborations keep on coming for Japanese hit game Puzzle & Dragons. Having already partnered successfully with Supercell on Clash of Clans, it has been announced that GungHo Online Entertainment will now work with the other Finnish mobile gaming giant Rovio, bringing Angry Birds characters into Puzzle & Dragons. The campaign will run from November 18 to December 1st.

Blogger Chiyo Komoriya points out that Rovio still isn’t very popular here in Japan, largely due to competition from strong character brands like Line and Nameco. When we spoke with Rovio representatives here in Tokyo earlier in the year, they emphasized a slow-and-steady, long term strategy, with the goal of learning the market and partnering with local companies like Sanrio, the maker of Hello Kitty.

So exactly how will Angry Birds look in P&D? Rovio has announced that they will be asking fans for their input on that point. They’re asking fans to graphically answer the question “What if the Angry Birds showed up in the world of Puzzle & Dragons?” Check out Rovio’s blog post for more details.

The tie-up with Puzzle & Dragons will certainly help give their games some visibility in the short term here in Japan. Although in the long term, Rovio still has a tough challenge ahead.

Last week we told you about GungHo’s P&D collaboration with Warner Bros, bringing Batman characters into Puzzle & Dragons. There is still about a week to go in that event.

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Comico provides free, mobile-friendly manga

SCORE 4,320

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.11.05

Although many people in Japan still prefer to read comic books on paper, smartphones are pushing the industry towards digital at a fast pace. In Japan, there are websites like Ebook Japan that provide over 160,000 digital comics, and other services like Cmoa and Manga Okoku (roughly means ‘manga kingdom’) serve the same purpose. Recently another service for digital manga was launched. It’s called Comico. At the time of launch, there are 56 different comics available free of charge, and this is expected to grow as the site expands. All the comics on the site are original and new stories are published everyday. Users on the site can rate and make comments on comics, or interact with each other. Sometime this year Comico plans to add a feature that lets anyone upload their own manga works. Comico is accessible on the web and via mobile apps on both iOS and Android. The latter are designed for an easy reading experience with a vertical scroll without frames. The company behind the service is NHN PlayArt. Its initial goal is to acquire 300,000 users by the end of this year.

Although many people in Japan still prefer to read comic books on paper, smartphones are pushing the industry towards digital at a fast pace. In Japan, there are websites like Ebook Japan that provide over 160,000 digital comics, and other services like Cmoa and Manga Okoku (roughly means ‘manga kingdom’) serve the same purpose.

Recently another service for digital manga was launched. It’s called Comico. At the time of launch, there are 56 different comics available free of charge, and this is expected to grow as the site expands. All the comics on the site are original and new stories are published everyday. Users on the site can rate and make comments on comics, or interact with each other. Sometime this year Comico plans to add a feature that lets anyone upload their own manga works.

Comico is accessible on the web and via mobile apps on both iOS and Android. The latter are designed for an easy reading experience with a vertical scroll without frames.

The company behind the service is NHN PlayArt. Its initial goal is to acquire 300,000 users by the end of this year.

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6 questions entrepreneurs should prepare for before first-time media interviews

Junya Mori 2013.11.05

See the original article in Japanese When I interview entrepreneurs, it’s not uncommon to hear people say: “This is my first media interview. I don’t know what to say." I think some might feel a little better by preparing for an interview beforehand. So with that in mind, here is a list of the questions that I usually ask entrepreneurs. What made you start your business? What is your product? How does your product different from others? How did you come up with this idea? How do you think your product can change the world? What is your short-term goal? These are the minimum questions I ask entrepreneurs who have just started a business. Let me explain why: What made you start your business? What I’d like to know here is the personality of the entrepreneur. Sometimes I can hear some stories of how they started their business, or they might tell anecdotes about how they came up with the idea. Those stories can help me better understanding the person. This is one of the most important questions. What is your product? In some cases, the product comes first when it comes to telling a company’s story. Perhaps they founded…

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See the original article in Japanese

When I interview entrepreneurs, it’s not uncommon to hear people say: “This is my first media interview. I don’t know what to say." I think some might feel a little better by preparing for an interview beforehand. So with that in mind, here is a list of the questions that I usually ask entrepreneurs.

What made you start your business?
What is your product?
How does your product different from others?
How did you come up with this idea?
How do you think your product can change the world?
What is your short-term goal?

These are the minimum questions I ask entrepreneurs who have just started a business. Let me explain why:

What made you start your business?

What I’d like to know here is the personality of the entrepreneur. Sometimes I can hear some stories of how they started their business, or they might tell anecdotes about how they came up with the idea. Those stories can help me better understanding the person. This is one of the most important questions.

What is your product?

In some cases, the product comes first when it comes to telling a company’s story. Perhaps they founded the company to market the product, and that product is heavily intertwined with the business.
I make sure to collect some information about the product before an interview, and I try to elicit more stories from the entrepreneur. This is so I can understand the personality of the entrepreneur by seeing how passionately the person speaks.

As one of our writers mentioned in a past article, sometimes the personality of an entrepreneur has a big influence on the product.

How is your product different from others?

Based on my experiences interviewing entrepreneurs, there are rarely “brand new” products. When I hear about a product from an entrepreneur, a similar product comes to my mind in most cases.

I have to identify the originality of the product somehow, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out with this question. The answer will help me understand how well the entrepreneur knows the strengths and the originality of the product and how much he/she has researched the competition. And of course, I can understand the product better by asking this question.

How do you think your product will change the world?

This question is a minor question, one that not all reporters will ask. I ask it sometimes. Some entrepreneurs might give you an answer similar to why they started the business. But some go further, explaining what kind of impact on the world and the society their business can have. You can elicit more ambitious thoughts by asking this question.
I get excited when I hear big ambition from entrepreneurs, like Hironao Kunimitsu, the cofounder of Gumi. Entrepreneurs who have big goals and vision and are always attractive to me.

What is your short-term goal?

This is a more detailed question. I ask about a short-term goal they have set and what detailed action they plan is in place to help achieve it. By asking about both long-term and short-term goals, I can see the road map they have in mind.

They cannot disclose everything open to public. But understanding short-term goals and action plans will help me understand how much growth I can expect.

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Made-in-Japan cycling/running app challenges Nike+, Runkeeper

Takeshi Hirano 2013.11.04

See the original story in Japanese. According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are about 3 million fitness enthusiasts in Japan, accounting for 2% of the entire population. But at the same time, most of us (unfortunately) do not like exercise so much. Personal trainer apps like Nike+, Runkeeper, Road Bike all do various things to help you keep motivated. And yesterday a new Japan-made app, Lemonade, joined their ranks, launching at a cycling competition event in Japan’s Tohoku region. Tokyo-based Lemonade Lab introduced a beta version of its running and cycling app for both iOS and Android platforms. It lets users track cycling routes, log records, share them with friends, and keep fitness resolutions. The Lemonade app was unveiled at Tour de Tohoku, an event hosted by Yahoo Japan and other companies. The event is intended to support the area’s restoration, having been hit hardest by the earthquake back in March of 2011. To learn about how the app will work, I visited Ishinomaki City, where the start and end point of the competition was located. For participating cyclists, the event gives you a great view of local nature along the 160km course, and it…

See the original story in Japanese.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are about 3 million fitness enthusiasts in Japan, accounting for 2% of the entire population. But at the same time, most of us (unfortunately) do not like exercise so much.

Personal trainer apps like Nike+, Runkeeper, Road Bike all do various things to help you keep motivated. And yesterday a new Japan-made app, Lemonade, joined their ranks, launching at a cycling competition event in Japan’s Tohoku region.

Tokyo-based Lemonade Lab introduced a beta version of its running and cycling app for both iOS and Android platforms. It lets users track cycling routes, log records, share them with friends, and keep fitness resolutions.

The Lemonade app was unveiled at Tour de Tohoku, an event hosted by Yahoo Japan and other companies. The event is intended to support the area’s restoration, having been hit hardest by the earthquake back in March of 2011.

To learn about how the app will work, I visited Ishinomaki City, where the start and end point of the competition was located. For participating cyclists, the event gives you a great view of local nature along the 160km course, and it also lets you learn about what’s happening in the area.

The Lemonade team started its race at 8am, and I checked the app to see their progress. Typical apps of this kind are focused on logging features, with record sharing features provided supplementary. But that’s not the case with Lemonade. Its main screen is a timeline, which shows you what you friends are doing and where they are now.

The entrepreneurs behind the app

The Lemonade team at Tour de Tohoku 2013

The development of the Lemonade app was conducted by two high-profile entrepreneurs: Taizo Son and Kunihiko Kaji. They decided to develop this app since cycling was a common hobby for them both. They explain:

Conventional logging apps are well done, but they’re lacking something. You won’t have fun competing with a stranger using the app. Sports can be fun if you share your experience with someone. That’s why we decided to develop an app helping people run together.

If you share your training results or check out where your friends are running using the app, it helps you make more friends through competitions. The team told me that they want users to enjoy their experience more before, during, and after events.

At major sport opportunities like the Tokyo Marathon, spectators along the course can also post photos using the app, giving them another way to enjoy the experience.

The app is still in beta with some wrinkles to iron out yet. But I really enjoyed watching how my friends were progressing along the road.

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