Today marks the two-year anniversary of the tragic March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and on the internet a number of organizations in Japan are marking the occasion with some form of remembrance. Over on Yahoo Japan, there’s a extensive interactive display that presents general information about the disaster, some stunning photos of the aftermath, plus profiles and interviews of folks involved in the recovery effort. Amazon Japan is also pitching in by selling local foods from the affected areas as well as books [1] about the natural disaster. There’s also a Japan earthquake wishlist where you can buy goods needed by local organization, such as books for libraries, for example. Amazon was especially supportive of the recovery effort back in 2011, bringing a number of jobs to Sendai with a call center there. Softbank also has a page set up to highlight various reconstruction efforts, including its own Tomodachi program which we wrote about last month. The company’s CEO Masayoshi Son contributed the sum of 10 billion yen (over $100 million) to help the relief effort in the month after the earthquake back in 2011. As we me mentioned last week, some other organizations are making an effort or digitally…
Today marks the two-year anniversary of the tragic March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and on the internet a number of organizations in Japan are marking the occasion with some form of remembrance.
Over on Yahoo Japan, there’s a extensive interactive display that presents general information about the disaster, some stunning photos of the aftermath, plus profiles and interviews of folks involved in the recovery effort.
Amazon Japan is also pitching in by selling local foods from the affected areas as well as books [1] about the natural disaster. There’s also a Japan earthquake wishlist where you can buy goods needed by local organization, such as books for libraries, for example. Amazon was especially supportive of the recovery effort back in 2011, bringing a number of jobs to Sendai with a call center there.
Yahoo Japan’s earthquake commemoration
Amazon Wishlist
Softbank also has a page set up to highlight various reconstruction efforts, including its own Tomodachi program which we wrote about last month. The company’s CEO Masayoshi Son contributed the sum of 10 billion yen (over $100 million) to help the relief effort in the month after the earthquake back in 2011.
As we me mentioned last week, some other organizations are making an effort or digitally archive memories of the disaster, including the newly opened NDL archive which collects important photos, video, and other information. Google’s archival work – particularly its ‘Memories for the Future’ website – perhaps stands out above all other efforts, as its work has been pretty continuous in the two years since the quake.
Of course, while remembrance is important, Japanese broadcaster NHK reminds us that many people in affected areas are still struggling with recovery. As you can see in its infographic below, their survey indicates that there is still a lot of work to do, not only in terms of repairing physical damage in affected areas, but also in terms of emotional recovery.
Written with contributions from Masaru Ikeda
For English speaking readers, you might want to check out the e-book Reconstructing 3/11, which is available as a free download today. ↩
Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) recently held its annual business plan presentation event for college and university students. It’s called Kigyouka Koshien, which literally means ‘entrepreneur championship.’ The event took place at an CyberAgent Ventures’ Startup Basecamp this past Thursday. NICT provides mentoring to students who have a passion for entrepreneurship. At the Thursday event, nine finalists from different regions came together in Tokyo, all hoping to walk away with the championship. Here’s a quick run down of what the participating teams are working on. Judges: Koki Sato (CEO, Septeni) Ryuichi Nishida (editor-in-chief, TechCrunch Japan) Tsuyoshi Hoshina (CTO, Nihon Unisys) Masahiko Honma (representative partner, Incubate Fund) Re-Ja ¶ Most of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them. Moku Tomo ¶ Japan is…
Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) recently held its annual business plan presentation event for college and university students. It’s called Kigyouka Koshien, which literally means ‘entrepreneur championship.’ The event took place at an CyberAgent Ventures’ Startup Basecamp this past Thursday.
NICT provides mentoring to students who have a passion for entrepreneurship. At the Thursday event, nine finalists from different regions came together in Tokyo, all hoping to walk away with the championship. Here’s a quick run down of what the participating teams are working on.
Most of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them.
Japan is said to have more than 20 million smokers. Moku Tomo is an app that lets them to find a smoking area nearby using a handy map. The business model is based on sponsorships from cigarette companies, from pharmaceutical companies selling nicotine patches, and from restaurants which have such smoking areas. The presenters, from Doshisha University in Kyoto, are now in talks with Japan Tobacco and British Tobacco.
Shingo Aida (of Aizu University in Fukushima) has developed an iOS app that acts as an alternative to seat posture measurement instruments. Such instruments are used to prevent those with mobility problems from developing posture issues or sores by ensuring the wheelchair is adjusted specifically for their body size and shape. An instrument of this kind helps people live better but is very costly. So Shingo has developed this app which is much cheaper. The target market is comprised of about 10,000 people in Japan and 80,000 more in the US.
When we hire a private teacher for our son or daughter, the biggest problem is usually that the quality of the lectures is very much dependent on who you hire. Tamiko Iwama (of Digital Hollywood University) wants to standardize the quality of the lectures by providing tutors with a web-based knowledge sharing platform. Learning materials and slides can be stored on the platform, and tutors can download them via the dashboard and customize their own lectures.
It’s often said that learning to reading code is like mastering a new language. But it’s not always easy since other people’s code could be written or structured far differently than what you might envision. And physical books for programming languages can be very costly and bulky. Code Library is a smartphone app that allow users to receive a lecture regardless of time and location. As part of its testing, Hamhei Horiuchi (of Tokyo’s University of Electrocommunications) has introduced a beta app called Code Library Lite, which will enable him to receive lots of feedback from programmers so he can refine the service.
A ‘Gakushoku’ is a cafeteria at a university which typically offers decent foods at affordable prices. For students who usually have little or no income, expenses for lunch at the cafeteria can account for most of their spending. That’s why this Chuo University team has come up with the idea of giving students a chance to win a complimentary meal. A QR code is printed on the back of a meal ticket, and a student can then scan it with his smartphone and watch ads while he waits for the meal. The team receives revenue from advertisers and pay a commission to cafeteria owners participating in the program.
The world’s Muslim community has huge market potential with a population of 1.6 billion people. A team from Yokohama National University hopes to found a sort of Craiglist for Muslims, in order to bridge Muslim communities around the world and here in Japan too. To refine the idea, the team has enlisted feedback from the folks at the Saudi Arabian Embassy and mosques in Tokyo. In partnership with Japanese travel agencies, C@ndy expects to provide information on travel packages for Muslim people, offer Japanese dishes made from Halal foods, and provide venues for praying during the trip.
Perler beads (or Hama beads) are a popular craft for children. But it’s difficult to build an original design on aa peg board. This team from Yonago National College of Technology hopes to produce a system that lets children create their own designs from their favorite pictures on an iPad. They plan to speak with Kawada Co., Ltd., a local distributor of Perler beads in Japan, to explore the monetization potential of this idea.
Elderly people in Japan (and in Okinawa, where this team originates) are eager to use digital devices to browse the web, but in many cases they can’t. In order to bridge this digital divide, the team has developed an app that lets elderly to browse news and updates from social media and blog on an iPad in a way that reflects the newspaper experience. Instead of searching a keyword to look for a specific topic, all you have to do is place your hand over an interesting story on your physical newspaper, just in front of the iPad camera. The app will detect which story you are interested in, and then collect updates from the blogsphere, showing them to you if they were a from a physical newspaper.
Pictured: The team from Okinawa National College of Technology presents ShinbuNet
This is the first in our ‘On My Mobile’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in Japan use their smartphones. We recently heard from Tokyo-based smartphone ad company Metaps, which just raised $11 million in series B funding. As a semi-related follow up, I thought it might be fun to ask someone from Metaps how they use their own Android phone. Yusuke Kobayashi was kind enough to participate in the first of what we hope to be a continuing series called ‘On My Mobile’. The goal is to take a look at the notable applications that folks in Japan’s tech industry use themselves, in the interests of better understanding Japan’s mobile space. In the interactive graphic below, you can see a couple of screens from Yusuke’s Android phone. He elaborates a little on three of his favorite applications: MT2 Free – This app is site viewer of Japanese 2channel which is a huge bulletin board site. I often use this app to get various information about entertainment, society, sport, etc. Also, the user comments for this app are pretty funny. Sudoku Plus – This app is puzzle game with numbers. I use this app to kill…
This is the first in our ‘On My Mobile’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in Japan use their smartphones.
We recently heard from Tokyo-based smartphone ad company Metaps, which just raised $11 million in series B funding. As a semi-related follow up, I thought it might be fun to ask someone from Metaps how they use their own Android phone. Yusuke Kobayashi was kind enough to participate in the first of what we hope to be a continuing series called ‘On My Mobile’. The goal is to take a look at the notable applications that folks in Japan’s tech industry use themselves, in the interests of better understanding Japan’s mobile space.
In the interactive graphic below, you can see a couple of screens from Yusuke’s Android phone. He elaborates a little on three of his favorite applications:
MT2 Free – This app is site viewer of Japanese 2channel which is a huge bulletin board site. I often use this app to get various information about entertainment, society, sport, etc. Also, the user comments for this app are pretty funny.
Sudoku Plus – This app is puzzle game with numbers. I use this app to kill time and exercise my brain.
Revenge Of Dragoon – This app is social game, and the most interesting thing about it is its story and the card battle.
You can mouse over the image below to explore more of Yusuke’s preferred applications.
As far as digital efforts in the fashion industry goes, there is an unfortunate lack of innovation in Japan. Even the more enthusiastic brands have only gone as far as releasing dedicated mobile apps for customer loyalty. But I recently stumbled upon a Tokyo-based company called Ceno which might be an exception to the digitally challenged status quo in the fashion industry. Ceno operates seven different lines of clothing, with one of the most famous brand being Vanquish. Its main customers are men in their early twenties, but the brand has managed to even attract teenagers and men in their forties. Vanquish received a lot of attention recently for an in-store collaborative project called Vanquish Venus, created in cooperation with Team Lab, a local organization famous for their digital creativity. Vanquish installed something called ‘TeamLabHanger’ at their stores, and when an item on a hanger is removed from the rack, it triggers video and audio on a screen overhead. The idea here was to bring in customers who would normally just walk past the Vanquish store, and for those already inside it would show them different ways to coordinating clothes. The project recruited famous female artists and celebrities to model…
Vanquish: in-store manga camera
As far as digital efforts in the fashion industry goes, there is an unfortunate lack of innovation in Japan. Even the more enthusiastic brands have only gone as far as releasing dedicated mobile apps for customer loyalty. But I recently stumbled upon a Tokyo-based company called Ceno which might be an exception to the digitally challenged status quo in the fashion industry.
Ceno operates seven different lines of clothing, with one of the most famous brand being Vanquish. Its main customers are men in their early twenties, but the brand has managed to even attract teenagers and men in their forties. Vanquish received a lot of attention recently for an in-store collaborative project called Vanquish Venus, created in cooperation with Team Lab, a local organization famous for their digital creativity. Vanquish installed something called ‘TeamLabHanger’ at their stores, and when an item on a hanger is removed from the rack, it triggers video and audio on a screen overhead.
The idea here was to bring in customers who would normally just walk past the Vanquish store, and for those already inside it would show them different ways to coordinating clothes. The project recruited famous female artists and celebrities to model in the videos, and it currently features Chiaki Ito from the popular pop group AAA. To keep things fresh, videos are renewed every two months with different models.
But perhaps the most notable model of all was virtual star Hatsune Miku (see video below), who attracted not-so-fashion-savvy netizens to the Vanquish brand, thus expanding its fan base a little beyond who the audience they normally sell to. Ceno even ended up creating an orginal Vanquish song by Hatsune Miku under the supervision of music label Karent.
There are also manga camera machines installed at three Vanquish stores (pictured above), including the Shibuya and Ikebukuro locations. These original purikura machines convert photos into unique manga-like images, which are then uploaded to the Vanquish Facebook page. The customers are then brought to the Facebook page where the company hopes they will click the ‘Like’ button [1].
Ceno has already expanded to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, China, and even Australia. Its next project is the launch of a Vanquish ecommerce site for BangKok, scheduled for this April. The brand is pretty well received by consumers around Asia, as the pricing is not too expensive. After going through different vendors to reach overseas markets, many Japanese brands end up being high-priced luxury brands (whether they want to or not). Ceno has partnered directly with different vendors in locals market to ensure this doesn’t happen.
The company has also started another brand called Gonoturn which sells unique hats and facial masks that mimic cute animals. It looks like a fun company too, as you can see below. Here the employees are pulling off another Harlem Shake video while wearing their own products.
In case you were wondering, Ceno began this manga camera project before the popular Manga Camera app appeared on the app store. ↩
This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan. Naver Matome is a very simple curation platform that launched back in July of 2009. To date it has accumulated over 41 million users and over 1.2 billion page views per month. The platform is now operated by NHN Japan (perhaps best known as the company behind the Line chat app) after a merger with Naver in November of 2011. On the site, users are able to create pages that bundle images, links, and videos under a topic of their choice, ranging from dieting, to politics, to web services. There are many reasons behind the platform’s sucess including its friendly user interface, the wide genre of topics curated, compatibility with different social networks (especially Twitter), and strong SEO for both Yahoo and Google with 70% of its traffic coming from the two search engines. But above all, Naver Matome helps users overcome information overflow. This is especially true for the younger generation, which is Naver Matome’s biggest user segment 1. Many young people have never subscribed to newspapers, and for this reason Japan’s Nikkei,…
This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan.
Naver Matome is a very simple curation platform that launched back in July of 2009. To date it has accumulated over 41 million users and over 1.2 billion page views per month. The platform is now operated by NHN Japan (perhaps best known as the company behind the Line chat app) after a merger with Naver in November of 2011.
On the site, users are able to create pages that bundle images, links, and videos under a topic of their choice, ranging from dieting, to politics, to web services. There are many reasons behind the platform’s sucess including its friendly user interface, the wide genre of topics curated, compatibility with different social networks (especially Twitter), and strong SEO for both Yahoo and Google with 70% of its traffic coming from the two search engines.
Curated cosplay on Matome
But above all, Naver Matome helps users overcome information overflow. This is especially true for the younger generation, which is Naver Matome’s biggest user segment 1. Many young people have never subscribed to newspapers, and for this reason Japan’s Nikkei, one of the country’s largest newspapers, has partnered with NHN to allow the use of texts (up to 200 characters) and images from the digital version of the newspaper in the hopes of attracting younger readers.
The total number of Matome pages now exceeds half a million. But what is the motivation for users to create these pages? Many users do it to earn pocket money. In November of 2010, Naver Matome began an incentive program, where some very popular Matome users with around half a million page views per month could receive payments as high as a few hundered thousand dollars.
Narumi is an example of popular curator with over 2.3 million monthly page views. Some topics he has created include:
Some curators specialize in tech, others in sports. Many of the curated topics are in fact very interesting and inspirational, although there are also many meant to be simply light or humorous.
Sometimes old articles from my personal blog get retweeted, and it’s likely that Naver Matome is contributing to that. The curators on the platform are great hunters of information, assisting others who may have difficulty finding relevant content. I hope that in the future traditional media can find a way to cooperate with Naver Matome and take advantage of the curation platform rather than seeing it as a threat or potential copyright violation, as some currently do.
Naver Matome is a unique corner of the Japanese net, and if you can read Japanese, you’re sure to find something you like over there. Enjoy!
The 20 to 29 demographic accounts for 34% of users, and 15 to 19 makes up 16%↩
Dragon Gate is a job matching site that connects foreign students to Japanese companies. It was recently launched by Future Design Lab, a career consultancy based in Tokyo. Japanese business customs could potentially be a difficult obstacle for foreign students looking to work with Japanese companies. The consultancy helps them overcome this in a few ways, including helping in the creation of a CV as well as advising how to choose the right company to work with. The most interesting feature of Dragon Gate is that the service allows students to upload an 30- to 60-second introductory video clip for free. This video lets them showcase themselves on a prominent stage, and it enables Japanese talent seekers to easily assess the candidate’s level of Japanese proficiency as well as their business manner prior to hiring. Japanese streaming platform operator J-Stream provides the video solution for the website.. With these notable functions, the consultancy expects to help many foreign students find placements in Japanese companies. So if you’re a student or a recent graduate looking to find work in Japan, you might want to sign up!
Dragon Gate is a job matching site that connects foreign students to Japanese companies. It was recently launched by Future Design Lab, a career consultancy based in Tokyo.
Japanese business customs could potentially be a difficult obstacle for foreign students looking to work with Japanese companies. The consultancy helps them overcome this in a few ways, including helping in the creation of a CV as well as advising how to choose the right company to work with.
The most interesting feature of Dragon Gate is that the service allows students to upload an 30- to 60-second introductory video clip for free. This video lets them showcase themselves on a prominent stage, and it enables Japanese talent seekers to easily assess the candidate’s level of Japanese proficiency as well as their business manner prior to hiring. Japanese streaming platform operator J-Stream provides the video solution for the website..
With these notable functions, the consultancy expects to help many foreign students find placements in Japanese companies. So if you’re a student or a recent graduate looking to find work in Japan, you might want to sign up!
Read this story in Japanese. When you go for a night out on the town, how do you find the best restaurant? In Japan, most people rely on internet resources such as Tabelog, Gournavi, Naver Matome, or even blog posts. But with Japan’s high internet penetration, many people in your area are probably doing the same thing. As a result, it can be even the harder to reserve a spot in the restaurant you want. Pocket Concierge was recently launched with the aim at solving this kind of problem, allowing you to book even popular restaurants that might be wait-listed for several months. How does it work? You bookmark the restaurant of your choice by clicking the ‘wish-to-go’ button on the Pocket Concierge website. When the restaurant finds any unexpected vacancy in their reservation list, they will e-mail you an invite through the site. You will be requested to enter what day and how many people are in your party. Pocket Concierge will then e-mail you confirmation of the booking after finalizing with the restaurant. While popular restaurants are tough to reserve, when they experience sudden cancellations they could be wasting food – and it’s useful for them to be…
When you go for a night out on the town, how do you find the best restaurant? In Japan, most people rely on internet resources such as Tabelog, Gournavi, Naver Matome, or even blog posts. But with Japan’s high internet penetration, many people in your area are probably doing the same thing. As a result, it can be even the harder to reserve a spot in the restaurant you want.
Pocket Concierge was recently launched with the aim at solving this kind of problem, allowing you to book even popular restaurants that might be wait-listed for several months.
How does it work? You bookmark the restaurant of your choice by clicking the ‘wish-to-go’ button on the Pocket Concierge website. When the restaurant finds any unexpected vacancy in their reservation list, they will e-mail you an invite through the site. You will be requested to enter what day and how many people are in your party. Pocket Concierge will then e-mail you confirmation of the booking after finalizing with the restaurant.
While popular restaurants are tough to reserve, when they experience sudden cancellations they could be wasting food – and it’s useful for them to be able to invite other customers instead. Interestingly, the service is not PC dependent as it is also available to use via fax.
Pocket Concierge was founded by Kei Tokado who was has experience in the restaurant business, including time as a restaurant chef. His unique background and insight made it possible to come up with such an idea, having seen the need for such a service first hand.
Early insights
Pocket Concierge has been operating in closed beta since the beginning of this year. And so far they have intriguing insights, finding that sales professionals in their 30s often dined with business partners, and male business owners in their 40s were also very responsive. Kei Tokado explains:
We previously intended to provide users with an alternative way to book ‘hard-to-reserve’ restaurants. But from the closed beta program, we found that customers using our service were very satisfied because participating restaurants provided them with extra rewards when the customers dined. In comparison to existing restaurant-related online services, we believe we provide more value, even offline.
We heard from many restaurants that it’s possible to learn in advance the sort of occasion a customer might have, or if they have certain ingredients they dislike or might be allergic to. This information makes it possible to provide a service which fits the customer very well.
For users, it’s free to make a reservation more than three days in advance of your visit, but otherwise you will be charged. The service started in Tokyo but expects to expand to other major Japanese cities including Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Fukuoka.
There’s much anticipation over the very futuristic Google Glass, which promises to deliver smartphone-like capabilities in a pair of wearable glasses. But the idea of providing useful, supplemental information through a pair of glasses is actually nothing new, especially in Japan where a number of manufacturers have already created such solutions, and there are more on the way. Today I thought I’d take a quick look at some projects and ideas which I think were important in the development of smart glasses technology. Brother’s AirScouter Japanese printer manufacturer Brother has been developing its AirScouter which came to light almost 5 years ago, announcing its commercialization in 2011. While it’s certainly a little bulky, the AirScouter is practical if nothing else, providing useful information in situations like assembly line work to explain complex tasks. Check out the video below for a more complete explanation. Docomo’s AR Walker Another such solution is Docomo’s AR Walker, a augmented reality prototype that the company exhibited way back in 2010, creating what I believe is the first head-mounted display that didn’t look awful. The project, at that time, required a wired connection to a smartphone using wires, but after that it could deliver handy information…
There’s much anticipation over the very futuristic Google Glass, which promises to deliver smartphone-like capabilities in a pair of wearable glasses. But the idea of providing useful, supplemental information through a pair of glasses is actually nothing new, especially in Japan where a number of manufacturers have already created such solutions, and there are more on the way. Today I thought I’d take a quick look at some projects and ideas which I think were important in the development of smart glasses technology.
Brother’s AirScouter
Japanese printer manufacturer Brother has been developing its AirScouter which came to light almost 5 years ago, announcing its commercialization in 2011. While it’s certainly a little bulky, the AirScouter is practical if nothing else, providing useful information in situations like assembly line work to explain complex tasks. Check out the video below for a more complete explanation.
Docomo’s AR Walker
Another such solution is Docomo’s AR Walker, a augmented reality prototype that the company exhibited way back in 2010, creating what I believe is the first head-mounted display that didn’t look awful. The project, at that time, required a wired connection to a smartphone using wires, but after that it could deliver handy information about the world around you via a QVGA display positioned just in front of the right lens.
This was a somewhat crude execution of augmented reality glasses, but an important one, I think. I had a chance to try this one first hand a few years back, and it worked very well, displaying information about the areas where your head was pointing, even showing you the weather when you look upwards. You can learn more in the video from Diginfo News below:
Dennou Coil (TV series)
Perhaps one of the lesser publicized influences on the development of Google Glass-like technology is the 2007 television series Dennou Coil, where characters use of augmented reality glasses to explore a virtual world that is superimposed on top of their city, visible only when they wear their glasses. The series was written and directed by Mitsuo Iso who also worked on the well known Ghost in the Shell film.
It’s hard to say how much this series affected or inspired the development of augmented reality a in Japan, but I would not be surprised if many individuals or even companies followed concepts seen here.
In the consumer space, Google Glass might be the leading product over the next few years, but we can expect more intriguing attempts to create such smart glasses from Japanese companies pushing the technology further as well. Both Fujitsu and Brilliant Service reportedly showed off some cool technology at the recent Mobile World Congress, promising to make significant improvements in the coming years.
Japanese social network Mixi (TYO:2121) doesn’t often do business beyond its home market, so I was pretty intrigued recently to get a preview of a relatively new project from its innovation team that is making an effort to go after global users. DeployGate initially launched last year, promising an easier way to distribute test versions of Android applications as part of the development process, all without an SDK. That service is getting an update today, one which expands its focus past just developers, placing more emphasis on the users. With this shift, it moves in on the territory of Test Flight, although its focus is still heavily on the development process. DeployGate initially came about as a result of the Mixi in-house developers scratching their own itch. As the were developing Mixi Android clients they often ran into problems, finding they had a need for easier deployment of apps to test users. DeployGate is the solution they came up with, eventually becoming a product that The Mixi innovation team would ship as a product, spun off from the Mixi development team. The process looks simple enough from a developer’s point of view. Your app is uploaded, and then you can…
L to R: Kenta Imai, Yuki Fujisaki, Kyosuke Inoue
Japanese social network Mixi (TYO:2121) doesn’t often do business beyond its home market, so I was pretty intrigued recently to get a preview of a relatively new project from its innovation team that is making an effort to go after global users. DeployGate initially launched last year, promising an easier way to distribute test versions of Android applications as part of the development process, all without an SDK. That service is getting an update today, one which expands its focus past just developers, placing more emphasis on the users. With this shift, it moves in on the territory of Test Flight, although its focus is still heavily on the development process.
DeployGate initially came about as a result of the Mixi in-house developers scratching their own itch. As the were developing Mixi Android clients they often ran into problems, finding they had a need for easier deployment of apps to test users. DeployGate is the solution they came up with, eventually becoming a product that The Mixi innovation team would ship as a product, spun off from the Mixi development team.
The process looks simple enough from a developer’s point of view. Your app is uploaded, and then you can create a unique deployment page (or distribution panel) for that iteration which can then be circulated to whomever you wish, typically via email. It can be password protected too if you like. The amount of users you can reach depends on your payment plan. After deployment over-the-air, a developer can then monitor error and crash reports from the web dashboard (pictured below), push updates, debug remotely, or even cancel privileges remotely if they choose.
The ability to deploy different app versions to different groups means that the newer version of DeployGate makes AB testing a little easier than before.
The new version of DeployGate has a number of new features, most notably a new pricing plan that makes it more accessible to more people. The pricing plans are listed below. As you can see, the new version follows a freemium model, although paid plans are reasonably priced.
With this new version, the hope is that developers and marketers will use the free plan and want to do more, eventually upgrading to paid plans. So far the team has mainly used Google Adwords for marketing, so this should give the product an extra push now that more people can try it out. But the advantages for any individual developers are obvious.
The team has high hopes for DeployGate too, saying they want to become the de facto solution for developing Android applications. That’s a lofty goal, but it looks like they have some prominent clients already. So far, notable companies who use DeployGate are Baidu (Japan), Kayac, Zaim [2], and Tokyo Otaku Mode. I’m told that currently the service has enough paid customers to sustain their current ecosystem, and that’s certainly promising.
So far they have users in 90 countries, with 3,400 apps distributed in total. And surprisingly their customers appear to be more global that than I’d have expected from anything associated with Mixi, with 76% of usage in English, and 24% in Japanese.
It will be interesting to see if this service from the innovation team can break free of the stagnation that has been hampering Mixi as a whole in recent years. But with DeployGate, along with the recently launched Nohana camera app, it’s certainly great to see them try.
Many of our readers are likely familiar with Shopkick, a popular smartphone app that rewards customers as they enter a store. Well, Japan has very similar service called Smapo, which provides a smooth combination of in-store hardware and a free smartphone app for both iPhone and Android. I recently had spoke with Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight Inc. (the company behind Smapo) to find out more about this service. With Smapo, all that a user has to do is to download the free app, and turn it on when walking into a participating merchant — exactly like Shopkick. Every time the app is turned on, users receive about 30 yen (about 30 cents) in points which can later be exchanged for gift certificates to be used at participating stores. What differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are so many small shops in Tokyo, and many brands decide to set up within crowded departments where in many cases, there is no proper store entrance. Smapo’s technology is valid as long as…
Many of our readers are likely familiar with Shopkick, a popular smartphone app that rewards customers as they enter a store. Well, Japan has very similar service called Smapo, which provides a smooth combination of in-store hardware and a free smartphone app for both iPhone and Android.
I recently had spoke with Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight Inc. (the company behind Smapo) to find out more about this service.
With Smapo, all that a user has to do is to download the free app, and turn it on when walking into a participating merchant — exactly like Shopkick. Every time the app is turned on, users receive about 30 yen (about 30 cents) in points which can later be exchanged for gift certificates to be used at participating stores.
What differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are so many small shops in Tokyo, and many brands decide to set up within crowded departments where in many cases, there is no proper store entrance. Smapo’s technology is valid as long as the user is in the store space (the inaudible audio signal does not go beyond the store’s walls) so wherever they are, the system works.
Finding new faces
Many notable merchants have already joined Smapo including mega electronics franchise Bic Camera, department stores Daimaru and Marui, as well as popular fashion retailer United Arrows. All of these merchants wanted a new way to attract consumers. Because many people do their product research in advance on computer and on smartphones these days, there is less of a need to actually visit the stores than before. Newspapers are one common place where merchants advertise, but the number of newspaper subscibers have dropped to half of what they used to be 15 years ago.
The user demographic for Smapo is half male and half female. And in an effort to satisfy the younger female generation, Smapo recently launched 58 more merchants targeting young women, including The Body Shop, and Amo’s Style (a lingerie brand). Early adopter male users are still fans of the app too. At Bic Camera, which can be a heaven for tech savvy geeks, Smapo can bring over 10,000 people to a store monthly.
But how effective is Smapo in actually attracting new consumers? Shibata-san cited Marui as an example. Their problem was that people perceived their brand as one specifically for young people, and they wanted to make an effort to bring in customers who shopped there in their youth, but may be a little older now. By bringing users to a specific part of the store such as the men’s shoe section or the women’s bags floor, they managed to land many new customers.
When they run a TV commercial, of all the customers who arrive at Marui, only 10% are new. With Smapo, that number rose to an impressive 40%. And of those 40%, about half the people ended up buying something.
Besides the chat application war that’s famously going down in Japan, O2O is another sector that’s going to generate some heat this year. NTT Docomo have adopted the exact same model as Shopkick and Smapo for their newly launched Shoplat. The system works in the same manner, but it seems that their speciality is restaurants and bars for now.
Ever since their launch in September of 2011, Smapo has seen no significant competitor, which also meant that they were essentially wholly responsible for developing the market. With the largest mobile carrier in Japan now in the game, we expect that this space is going to get far more competitive in the coming months. It is not very often we see such a young startup butting heads against an internet giant in Japan. Stay tuned, because this is going to get interesting.
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
Most of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them.
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Junya Mori
