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Japanese tower defense hit ‘Battle Cats’ marches on, now with 4 million downloads

Rick Martin 2013.03.27

The Japanese tower defense game Battle Cats from Kyoto-based developer Ponos has just surpassed 4 million downloads, this according to Gamebiz.jp. This comes shortly after the title passed the 2 million downloads milestone just last month. The game was initially released for iOS back in November, with the Android version following at the end of December. The title has been a top 50 iOS app in Japan for the majority of 2013, and a top 5 stallworth in the strategy category. The Android version has done even better, starting out a little slow, but staying in the top 25 of all Android apps for Japan since early January, with the exception of a few days. Personally I’m a huge fan of this game, and I’m really glad to see it doing well. I confess, that Puzzle & Dragon’s has displaced Battle Cats somewhat in my gaming time, but if I can ever get past chapter 3, round 48, then I expect my addiction will re-kindle pretty quickly. While I haven’t yet cracked the problem of beating chapter 3, some readers have inquired about beating chapter 2. So here’s a short video (above) which gives an overview of that round. I…

The Japanese tower defense game Battle Cats from Kyoto-based developer Ponos has just surpassed 4 million downloads, this according to Gamebiz.jp. This comes shortly after the title passed the 2 million downloads milestone just last month. The game was initially released for iOS back in November, with the Android version following at the end of December.

The title has been a top 50 iOS app in Japan for the majority of 2013, and a top 5 stallworth in the strategy category. The Android version has done even better, starting out a little slow, but staying in the top 25 of all Android apps for Japan since early January, with the exception of a few days.

Personally I’m a huge fan of this game, and I’m really glad to see it doing well. I confess, that Puzzle & Dragon’s has displaced Battle Cats somewhat in my gaming time, but if I can ever get past chapter 3, round 48, then I expect my addiction will re-kindle pretty quickly.

While I haven’t yet cracked the problem of beating chapter 3, some readers have inquired about beating chapter 2. So here’s a short video (above) which gives an overview of that round. I hope it helps!

If you’re a fan of Battle Cats, feel free to share your tips or invite codes in the comment section below.

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Japan increasingly turning to Facebook to reach potential tourists

Rick Martin 2013.03.24

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well. The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week. It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form. Reaching beyond Japan’s borders Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential…

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well.

The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week.

It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form.

Reaching beyond Japan’s borders

Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential tourists, posting photos from around Japan, and conducting quizzes. The company boasts cheaper tours than its competitors, and its Facebook presence (now with about 21,000 fans) is a place potential tour participants can comment and have discussions.

As for Japan’s official tourism arm, the JNTO, it has also been pretty active in reaching out on the social network. The organization operates a number of regional pages targeting a variety of countries, including the USA (153,000 fans), Singapore (141,000), and Thailand (92,000).

Of course, the efforts of these companies to promote Japan abroad via Facebook pales in comparison to startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which has racked up more than 11 million Facebook fans with its page about Japanese otaku subculture [2]. Likewise, another young startup under the KDDI Mugen Labo incubator program, Kawaii Museum JPN, is doing something similar, and currently has more than 3 million Facebook fans.

In addition to capitalizing on the power of Facebook, companies and organizations are using the afore-mentioned Line chat app to reach audiences and customers. This past week we featured the apparel brand Lip Service which has been using Line to connect with customers via smartphones, and the end result was a 50% boost in in sales over the previous week. Even the Prime Minister’s Office has a Line account, promising to push updates to citizens who want to stay in the loop using their smartphones [3].

I say ‘perhaps’ because many would say that recently the social network of choise is Line, although as a chat app many others would say it isn’t strictly a social network. ↩
To learn more about Tokyo Otaku Mode, see our feature on the young up-and-coming startup from last month. ↩
And as of this week, the Prime Minister’s Office also has its own smartphone apps! ↩

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5 photo apps with fantastic skin filters that Japanese women prefer

SCORE 9,522

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.23

It is probably safe to assume that on every Japanese girl’s smartphone home screen, they have a photo sharing app of some sort. Instagram is pretty mainstream in the country, but other popular photo apps seems to have one thing in common: Photo filters to make your skin look whiter and smoother. Here is a list of five apps with such filters that are likely to have nabbed a spot on girls’ smartphones. Bihaku Camera ¶ Bihaku Camera has an impressive 4.2 rating on Google Play so far, and with the app’s skin-whitening and smoothening features, freckles and wrinkles magically dissappear. This app is well-known among girls and according to R25, a popular free-paper by Recruit, members of the popular pop group AKB48 are fans of the app too. MoreBeaute ¶ Available on iOS, MoreBeaute is yet another such app which is popular among females. Skin-whitening and smoothening is done automatically whenever a photo is taken or chosen from photo library. The app easily creates the sort of pore-free skin that girls dream of. Prunelle ¶ In the past few years, Japanese girls — especially those in high school and college — began wearing colored contact lenses as part of…

It is probably safe to assume that on every Japanese girl’s smartphone home screen, they have a photo sharing app of some sort. Instagram is pretty mainstream in the country, but other popular photo apps seems to have one thing in common: Photo filters to make your skin look whiter and smoother. Here is a list of five apps with such filters that are likely to have nabbed a spot on girls’ smartphones.

Bihaku Camera ¶

Bihaku Camera has an impressive 4.2 rating on Google Play so far, and with the app’s skin-whitening and smoothening features, freckles and wrinkles magically dissappear. This app is well-known among girls and according to R25, a popular free-paper by Recruit, members of the popular pop group AKB48 are fans of the app too.

MoreBeaute ¶

Available on iOS, MoreBeaute is yet another such app which is popular among females. Skin-whitening and smoothening is done automatically whenever a photo is taken or chosen from photo library. The app easily creates the sort of pore-free skin that girls dream of.

Prunelle ¶

In the past few years, Japanese girls — especially those in high school and college — began wearing colored contact lenses as part of their fashion. And this photo sharing app, which was just recently released, is lets girls try out different colored contact lenses. Prunelle, which means pupils in French, has over 200 kinds of colored lenses, available in various sizes. If you find a favorite, the app allows you to purchase the product directly from the app.

DecoPuri ¶

At traditional purikura photo booths, skin whitening filters are a default feature. DecoPuri is your own personal purikura app that comes with over 400 decorative materials including stamps and photo frames. But it also provides five levels of skin whitening and smoothning. The app also deletes the camera’s shutter sound, which can be handy for those who want to create selfies when out and about!

Megami Camera ¶

Available for both iOS and Android, this app does more than just provide features to enhance the skin, but it also has twenty different filters for the eyes. Making your eyes sparkle or change color is just a tap away with Megami Camera. It has a 4.4 rating on Google Play, and you can see how it works in the video below.

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With 4 million downloads for iPhone, popular Japanese collage app hits Android [Video]

Rick Martin 2013.03.21

Japanese photo application Papelook has just announced that it has surpassed 4 million downloads on iOS. The application, which very much falls in the ‘kawaii’ apps category, is a very handy way to repurpose your photos in a stylish collage which can then be shared with friends. And for those of you not on iOS, the company has announced that an Android version is being released today as well. Check out our video demo above for a general idea of how the service works. Currently the majority of its users are young women (80%), and the feminine style of the photo decorations certainly reflects that. Nonetheless, I put together a collage of baby pictures just now, and I expect I’ll make a few more like this to share with family in the future. The application has been around for a long time (since mid 2011), but it wasn’t until its 2.0 release last May that it saw some real momentum. The company says that it has about 1.2 million active users currently, which is certainly an impressive total for an app in this genre. Papelook also publishes its pape.me girls fashion magazine app for iOS which itself has 250,000 downloads….

Japanese photo application Papelook has just announced that it has surpassed 4 million downloads on iOS. The application, which very much falls in the ‘kawaii’ apps category, is a very handy way to repurpose your photos in a stylish collage which can then be shared with friends. And for those of you not on iOS, the company has announced that an Android version is being released today as well. Check out our video demo above for a general idea of how the service works.

Currently the majority of its users are young women (80%), and the feminine style of the photo decorations certainly reflects that. Nonetheless, I put together a collage of baby pictures just now, and I expect I’ll make a few more like this to share with family in the future.

The application has been around for a long time (since mid 2011), but it wasn’t until its 2.0 release last May that it saw some real momentum. The company says that it has about 1.2 million active users currently, which is certainly an impressive total for an app in this genre. Papelook also publishes its pape.me girls fashion magazine app for iOS which itself has 250,000 downloads.

Geographically, 71.6% of its users come from its home market of Japan, with 10.7% and 6.5% from Thailand and Taiwan respectively.

As for its future business, Papelook may offer print services since many people make such collages for birthdays or weddings. And given the focused audience, advertising tie-ups are possible as well.

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‘Super lettuce’ grown under LED lights in Japan

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.18

Japanese families who live along side Tokyo’s Odakyu train line can now enjoy more nutritious vegetables thanks to a collaborative project between Tamagawa University and Nishimatsu Construction. Last October, the two groups began an experimental operation to grow leaf lettuce using LED lights and liquid fertilizer. The project was carried out at the 900 square meter LED SciTech farm, spanning two floors, where lights, temperature, and humidity are controlled by 50 sensors. By adjusting the RGB light wavelength as well as the amount of light, the system is able to produce nutritious vegetables in a very short amount of time. Including the time for seedling, vegetables can be harvested within 15 days. At SciTech farms, sweetness, color, texture, softness and even flavor can be controlled. The resulting lettuce can contain as much as 2.6 times the antioxidative potency in comparison to regular lettuce. Since these vegetables are harvested without pesticides, they can even be eaten without washing. The process of LED cultivation brought many challenges, including the durability of lamps and the huge initial cost. After much trial and error, they succeeded in improving the lamps and developing their cultivation method by analyzing how plants react to lights. The entire…

Japanese families who live along side Tokyo’s Odakyu train line can now enjoy more nutritious vegetables thanks to a collaborative project between Tamagawa University and Nishimatsu Construction.

Last October, the two groups began an experimental operation to grow leaf lettuce using LED lights and liquid fertilizer. The project was carried out at the 900 square meter LED SciTech farm, spanning two floors, where lights, temperature, and humidity are controlled by 50 sensors. By adjusting the RGB light wavelength as well as the amount of light, the system is able to produce nutritious vegetables in a very short amount of time. Including the time for seedling, vegetables can be harvested within 15 days.

At SciTech farms, sweetness, color, texture, softness and even flavor can be controlled. The resulting lettuce can contain as much as 2.6 times the antioxidative potency in comparison to regular lettuce. Since these vegetables are harvested without pesticides, they can even be eaten without washing.

The process of LED cultivation brought many challenges, including the durability of lamps and the huge initial cost. After much trial and error, they succeeded in improving the lamps and developing their cultivation method by analyzing how plants react to lights. The entire process from seeding to harvesting is done mechanically, which reduces man power, bringing the project closer to achieving profitability.

Dr. Hiroyuki Watanabe, the brains behind the SciTech farm project, initially got the idea during his time as a researcher at Mitsubishi Chemical back in 1992, when he inspected a NASA project which used LED lights to cultivate plants in space. He officially began his research for SciTech farms upon starting his job at Tamagawa University. The project aims not only to provide consumers with safer food but also to support industrial recovery in regions affected by the Tohoku earthquake.

This new super lettuce is named Yumena (roughly meaning ‘dreams and vegetables’) and can be bought at sixteen Odakyu OX super markets for about 200 yen, as of February 1. (Source tamagawa.jp, Yomiuri)

Photo by Sankei Photo

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Domino’s Hatsune Miku app boosting pizza sales in Japan. We gave it a test run. [Video]

SCORE 1,195

Rick Martin 2013.03.14

Last week we mentioned a new augmented reality iPhone app from Domino’s Japan featuring virtual pop star Hatsune Miku. The app overlays a virtual song and dance performance right on top of your pizza box using the iPhone camera. Domino’s has reportedly even seen shortages of its new Hatsune Miku pizza boxes at some locations, with some stores reporting a 10x increase in sales. As we noted last week, Kamakura-based studio Kayac was involved in the planning and development of the application, and it certainly looks to be a successful campaign so far, in terms of publicity. Domino’s even has pink Hatsune Miku branded motorbikes for deliveries! In order to get a better idea of how the app works, I went ahead and ordered a pizza. These are the sacrifices we make for you, dear reader, so I hope you appreciate it! Check out Hatsune Miku’s augmented reality performance on pizza boxes in our video below.

Last week we mentioned a new augmented reality iPhone app from Domino’s Japan featuring virtual pop star Hatsune Miku. The app overlays a virtual song and dance performance right on top of your pizza box using the iPhone camera. Domino’s has reportedly even seen shortages of its new Hatsune Miku pizza boxes at some locations, with some stores reporting a 10x increase in sales.

As we noted last week, Kamakura-based studio Kayac was involved in the planning and development of the application, and it certainly looks to be a successful campaign so far, in terms of publicity. Domino’s even has pink Hatsune Miku branded motorbikes for deliveries!

In order to get a better idea of how the app works, I went ahead and ordered a pizza. These are the sacrifices we make for you, dear reader, so I hope you appreciate it!

Check out Hatsune Miku’s augmented reality performance on pizza boxes in our video below.

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Japanese startup acquisitions: An interactive timeline

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.14

As I mentioned in a recent article about Yahoo Japan’s acquisition of Dreampass, the startup eco-system is gradually taking shape here in Japan. Incubators play a big role in the eco-system and off the top of my head I can think of maybe ten incubators. Many provide a Y-combinator model three month program with five to ten startups in each class. Most acquisitions have happened in the past year or two, so it is still far too soon to predict the fate of such startups. However, we have witnessed some encouraging exits in the last couple of years, so we thought we’d present an overview. Note that it’s not comprehensive, but it is a good general overview. Check out our interactive timeline of acquisitions above (feel free to share with the embed code below), or read on for more details below! Cirius Technologies (August 2010) ¶ Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) acquired geo-location enabled mobile advertisement technology company Cirius Technologies for an undisclosed sum. At the time of, it was rumored to be an acqui-hire for Yahoo so that it could obtain patents for the ad-technology in hopes of optimize its local mobile advertisement products. Atlantis (January 2011) ¶ Gaming giant GREE…

As I mentioned in a recent article about Yahoo Japan’s acquisition of Dreampass, the startup eco-system is gradually taking shape here in Japan. Incubators play a big role in the eco-system and off the top of my head I can think of maybe ten incubators. Many provide a Y-combinator model three month program with five to ten startups in each class. Most acquisitions have happened in the past year or two, so it is still far too soon to predict the fate of such startups. However, we have witnessed some encouraging exits in the last couple of years, so we thought we’d present an overview. Note that it’s not comprehensive, but it is a good general overview. Check out our interactive timeline of acquisitions above (feel free to share with the embed code below), or read on for more details below!

Cirius Technologies (August 2010) ¶

Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) acquired geo-location enabled mobile advertisement technology company Cirius Technologies for an undisclosed sum. At the time of, it was rumored to be an acqui-hire for Yahoo so that it could obtain patents for the ad-technology in hopes of optimize its local mobile advertisement products.

Atlantis (January 2011) ¶

Gaming giant GREE picked up ad-exchange platform Atlantis with an eye to winning an advantage over its competitors. Just a month after the acquisition, Gree began it’s own independent ad program. The acquisition price was rumored to be somewhere around two billion yen.

Nobot (July 2011) ¶

Tokyo-based smartphone ad optimization and exchange platform Nobot was acquired by KDDI’s advertising unit Mediba for 1.5 billion yen (about $19.2 million). With this acquisition, KDDI became one of the largest local ad platforms, pitting it directly against Google’s AdMob.

Naked Technology (September 2011) ¶

Mixi, one of the biggest and oldest social networks in Japan, acquired Naked Technology, a smartphone development company known for its talented engineers in hopes of enhancing its smartphone app development. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Conit (November 2011) ¶

A few months later Mixi also picked up Conit, a startup that was founded in 2008 and focused on smartphone app development. It operated an in-app purchase platform for iOS and Android called Samurai Purchase.

Mars Ltd. (November 2011) ¶

Gree acquired Tokyo-base startup Mars Ltd, a company known for its signature pet game ‘Megu.’

Pikkle (April 2012) ¶

Online game and smartphone development studio KLab acquired social games Pikkle company for 175 million yen. This was an acqui-hire for the development team, also bringing in CEO David Collier, the current CTO at KLab America.

Decopic (September 2012) ¶

Community Factory, the company behind this successful photo sharing app for girls, was acquired by Yahoo Japan for an estimated one billion yen. The six year-old startup (at the time) was the very first startup to be funded by a Mixi venture fund. Owning 40% of the total stocks, Mixi for the first time recorded a sizable chunk of income amounting to about 310.2 million yen(about $3,246,000).

Social Lunch (December 2012) ¶

Social game company Donuts acquired lunch partner matching app Social Lunch for an undisclosed sum. Having operated for just a year and four months at the time of buyout, the app had 60,000 users. Social Lunch was a graduate of the KDDI Innovation Fund and the three members of the team joined Donuts to continue the operation of Social Lunch.

Kamado (December 2012) ¶

Kamado was another Mixi acquisition. The company’s well-known CEO Yuichi Kawasaki was the former vice president of Japanese bookmarking site Hatena. Kamado runs a few web services including a social item exchanging website Livlis and a fashion photo curation site called Clipie.

Enter Crews (January 2013) ¶

Mobile entertainment platform Mobcast went public in June of 2012 with over 2.7 million users (as of October 2012). It acquired online game development company Enter Crews (with 300,000 users in Japan) for roughly 600 million yen. Enter Crews was founded in September of 2009 and has opened offices in Korea and Indonesia as well. It’s a logical move by Mobcast who is eager to accelerate its expansion to other parts of Asia.

Dreampass (March 2013) ¶

The most recent acquisition was made by Yahoo Japan for on-demand cinema service Dreampass, for an undisclosed amount. You can read more about the deal here.

This is not a complete list of startup exit stories from Japan, but you can get an idea that the money is moving around mobile ads and social gaming. Although the competition for talent (especially developers) is not as intense as Silicon Valley, social gaming companies are facing a talent acquisition war. I’m sure that these examples will only encourage and motivate creative young Japanese with their minds set on changing the world.

Feel free to share our graphic using the embed code below:

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Catching up with the CoolIris team in Tokyo

Rick Martin 2013.03.13

If you spend a lot of time on popular social networks, it can be tough to wrap your head around exactly what CoolIris is. The Palo Alto company has produced a number of photo solutions over the years, most recently its CoolIris app which aspires to bring all your photos together in one place. It’s not photo sharing in the sense that we’ve become accustomed to, but rather a meta viewing/sharing layer on top of the photo services we already use. I caught up with representatives of the company, including CEO Soujanya Bhumkar, at our Tokyo office this week to learn more about what they are up to these days. Currently the company boasts Japan as its second largest install base, next to the US, so its not surprising that they would pay a visit here every once in a while [1]. When we spoke with Soujanya, he highlighted not only the app’s capabilities of bringing together your photos from places like Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, and your camera roll, but also the important function of being able to share photos selectively. In a time when people are turning to closed social networks like Path [2], this adds value on top…

L to R: VP Business Development Sebasian Blum, Sr Software Engineer Venkat Krishnaraj, CEO Soujanya Bhumkar

If you spend a lot of time on popular social networks, it can be tough to wrap your head around exactly what CoolIris is. The Palo Alto company has produced a number of photo solutions over the years, most recently its CoolIris app which aspires to bring all your photos together in one place. It’s not photo sharing in the sense that we’ve become accustomed to, but rather a meta viewing/sharing layer on top of the photo services we already use. I caught up with representatives of the company, including CEO Soujanya Bhumkar, at our Tokyo office this week to learn more about what they are up to these days. Currently the company boasts Japan as its second largest install base, next to the US, so its not surprising that they would pay a visit here every once in a while [1].

When we spoke with Soujanya, he highlighted not only the app’s capabilities of bringing together your photos from places like Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, and your camera roll, but also the important function of being able to share photos selectively. In a time when people are turning to closed social networks like Path [2], this adds value on top of the slick 3D photo wall view that CoolIris already is best known for (pictured right).

So if you wish to send pictures from your various sources to someone by email, you can do so without the need for attachments as the collection is sent to the recipient (or a group of recipients) via a browser link. Interestingly, if more photos are added, you’ll see it in real time, and you can also see a real time chat discussion in the browser too.

On the business side of things, it’s interesting to see CoolIris’s business model develop a B2B element, with prominent regional partners that includes Renren in China and Yandex in Russia. Many of its partners promote CoolIris heavily, allowing it to quickly expand its user base around the world.

Next in Line?

Naturally, we were curious if they might be eyeing some specific partners here in Japan. And while they couldn’t specify any company in particular, we think NHN Japan’s Line appears to be a natural fit (especially given the popularity of Line Camera). Soujanya tells me that Korea is the next stop on their trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see KakaoTalk as a stop on their tour too.

As for the future of the CoolIris app, the team tells us that video is something that could be on the horizon, as well as possible integrations with Vine. They are also considering in-app purchases for some premium features and services.

Soujanya asserts that ‘Pixels are the new decibels’ and that they hope to empower their users to be able to show off their best pictures with family and friends without worrying about complex privacy settings.

Let’s stay tuned and see where they go from here!

Asia as a whole accounts for 30% of its user base. And I understand that China is the number two country in terms of growth rate, which is a good indication that adding Renren integration was a good idea. ↩
I’m not a Path user, but I do use Notabli for baby pictures. ↩

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Online support software provider Zendesk makes its presence in Japan official

Rick Martin 2013.03.13

See also this story in Japanese. Online customer support platform Zendesk has officially established a presence here in Japan, celebrating the launch of its KK in Tokyo yesterday evening. I had a chance to catch up with the company’s CEO Mikkel Svane the day before the event, and asked him a little about how Zendesk plans to approach the Japanese market. So far the company has about 100 customers here in Japan (having made its services available in Japanese last year) out of a total of 3,000 in the Asia Pacific. The majority of customers in the region are from Australia and New Zealand, because the company’s initial traction has been in English speaking markets, but recently opportunities are presenting themselves in other countries too, as Mikkel explains: There are [new] markets that we see recently with some traction, and Japan is one of these. It’s a big, homogenous, scalable market. We have been fortunate to work with some early partners with whom we have a mutual respect. […] I think it’s important to bridge the cultures and that’s very much in the DNA of Zendesk — we have a crazy mix of nationalities. We will be patient, we have…

See also this story in Japanese.

Online customer support platform Zendesk has officially established a presence here in Japan, celebrating the launch of its KK in Tokyo yesterday evening. I had a chance to catch up with the company’s CEO Mikkel Svane the day before the event, and asked him a little about how Zendesk plans to approach the Japanese market.

So far the company has about 100 customers here in Japan (having made its services available in Japanese last year) out of a total of 3,000 in the Asia Pacific. The majority of customers in the region are from Australia and New Zealand, because the company’s initial traction has been in English speaking markets, but recently opportunities are presenting themselves in other countries too, as Mikkel explains:

There are [new] markets that we see recently with some traction, and Japan is one of these. It’s a big, homogenous, scalable market. We have been fortunate to work with some early partners with whom we have a mutual respect. […] I think it’s important to bridge the cultures and that’s very much in the DNA of Zendesk — we have a crazy mix of nationalities. We will be patient, we have a lot to learn — but we are committed long term.

He admits that for the Zendesk team coming to Japan, there’s certainly more than a little mystery surrounding the market here. Like many Western companies aspiring to get into Asia markets, finding the right local staff and local partners will be key:

I think we’ll rely a lot on the people that we hire to see what version of the Zendesk product and culture will work here. We will work with early adopter companies and gain a foothold there, and that is how we plan to embrace the Japanese market. I feel very confident about that.

Educating and informing

As many of you may know, Zendesk made headlines in late February when a hacker broke into its system and downloaded email addresses. And while the company was pretty transparent about what transpired, I was curious whether or not this affected their pursuit of new customers, especially here in Japan. Mikkel explains that for customers who are in the buying process, there are some who would like to know more about what happened, and some existing customers have questions as well. They have been explaining how that vulnerability was exploited, and relating the measures that they are taking to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I’m told that Zendesk signed a big client just last week, certainly a good sign that companies still have faith in them.

In order to help further educate potential customers about their services, Zendesk has been holding the same sort of ‘bootcamps’ which it has held in other regions. Here in Japan, their first bootcamps were conducted with translators, but the most recent one in February was conducted entirely in Japanese in cooperation with a local partner.

Interestingly, Mikkel and his team observe that working with smaller businesses here in Japan is pretty much the same as working with small businesses elsewhere. The company has worked with startup incubators around Asia, and they hope to do the same in Japan as well. They already work with Open Network Lab, and I expect there will be more to come later as well.

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Most successful mobile game ever? Puzzle & Dragons passes 10 million downloads [Video]

Rick Martin 2013.03.12

Japanese game developer and publisher GungHo Entertainment announced today that its insanely popular Puzzle & Dragons game has finally surpassed the 10 million downloads mark (as of March 9th). It took just over a year to reach the mark, after its initial release in February of 2012. And while the games download count is not by itself a standout accomplishment, its longevity at or near the top of the Apple and Google Play top grossing app charts is incredible. Most of the game’s downloads are from its home market of Japan, where the game has been helped by television commercials. Described as a combination of a Bejeweled-ish puzzle game and an RPG, Puzzle & Dragons has yet to really catch on outside of Japan, after launching English versions late last year. I’m not certain why this is, but speaking from my own experience with the game [1], my initial encounter didn’t get me hooked. At first I didn’t quite realize how the jewels (called ‘Orbs’ in the game) could be maneuvered. But eventually I figured out you could move an orb wherever you wished – you can even move them diagonally. There are still a lot of things that I…

Japanese game developer and publisher GungHo Entertainment announced today that its insanely popular Puzzle & Dragons game has finally surpassed the 10 million downloads mark (as of March 9th). It took just over a year to reach the mark, after its initial release in February of 2012. And while the games download count is not by itself a standout accomplishment, its longevity at or near the top of the Apple and Google Play top grossing app charts is incredible.

Most of the game’s downloads are from its home market of Japan, where the game has been helped by television commercials. Described as a combination of a Bejeweled-ish puzzle game and an RPG, Puzzle & Dragons has yet to really catch on outside of Japan, after launching English versions late last year. I’m not certain why this is, but speaking from my own experience with the game [1], my initial encounter didn’t get me hooked.

At first I didn’t quite realize how the jewels (called ‘Orbs’ in the game) could be maneuvered. But eventually I figured out you could move an orb wherever you wished – you can even move them diagonally. There are still a lot of things that I have yet to learn about the game, like which monsters in your collection are best used to evolve other monsters, or strategies relating to the various types of monsters when attacking.

But nevertheless I enjoy the game immensely, and part of the reason is because of the game’s depth. There’s still a lot that I have yet to figure out. If you’re new to the game, I recommend you check out some of the many video demos on YouTube (including my own demo, which you can see above). There’s also a subreddit dedicated to the game, which you might want to watch as well.

If you have any tips for how to excel in the game, I’d love to hear, so don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below. [Via Gamebiz.jp]

(Download image version of chart)

If you’d like to add me as a friend in-game, my ID is 333,547,212. Feel free to drop your ID here in the comments too if you like. ↩

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