NHN Japan has been releasing a number of casual games via its popular Line chat platform in recent months, all of them relatively casual titles, many of them puzzlers like Line Pop or Line Birzzle. But its latest title, Line Wind Runner, while it is still very casual, is perhaps one of the most fun games to come from Line so far. The game is a side-scrolling platformer, and reminds me a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog in that you have to collect as many stars as you can [1]. But the controls are appropriately simple for a mobile game, as your character runs on its own, and you merely need to jump over obstacles on your way. You can do one tap for a single jump, and to do a sort of air glide, you do a double tap which lets you reach greater heights. Currently Wind Runner is the top ranked game in Apple’s Japanese App Store, and it is the second ranked free app overall. It’s also doing well in other Asian countries, ranking as the third highest free app in Thailand and Taiwan, and the second highest in Cambodia. On Google Play, it’s also doing…
NHN Japan has been releasing a number of casual games via its popular Line chat platform in recent months, all of them relatively casual titles, many of them puzzlers like Line Pop or Line Birzzle. But its latest title, Line Wind Runner, while it is still very casual, is perhaps one of the most fun games to come from Line so far.
The game is a side-scrolling platformer, and reminds me a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog in that you have to collect as many stars as you can [1]. But the controls are appropriately simple for a mobile game, as your character runs on its own, and you merely need to jump over obstacles on your way. You can do one tap for a single jump, and to do a sort of air glide, you do a double tap which lets you reach greater heights.
Currently Wind Runner is the top ranked game in Apple’s Japanese App Store, and it is the second ranked free app overall. It’s also doing well in other Asian countries, ranking as the third highest free app in Thailand and Taiwan, and the second highest in Cambodia.
On Google Play, it’s also doing ok, but still has lots of room to improve.
Youtube is the most popular online video site in the world, and it’s certainly big here in Japan too. But Japan also has a very unique video sharing site called Niconico Douga that’s wildly popular among netizens [1]. The site enables users to comment on top of the video they’re viewing, resulting in the feeling that everyone is together in one big room enjoying (or not enjoying) the same video. Comments are displayed at the time in the video corresponding with when they were posted, and the random marquee-style text transforms the video into an entirely new form of entertainment. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks, with the actual video included below. Niconico Douga quietly first emerged back in December of 2006, pushing out a beta version a month later. Since then, the site has offered many unique features to its users, successfully accumulating over 30 million users as of 2012. That averages out to a whopping 440,000 new users per month. The user demographic is mostly male (with 67% men and 33% women) and most of the active users are in the 20-29 age range (about 42%). There have been over 8.7 million videos uploaded to the site…
Youtube is the most popular online video site in the world, and it’s certainly big here in Japan too. But Japan also has a very unique video sharing site called Niconico Douga that’s wildly popular among netizens [1]. The site enables users to comment on top of the video they’re viewing, resulting in the feeling that everyone is together in one big room enjoying (or not enjoying) the same video. Comments are displayed at the time in the video corresponding with when they were posted, and the random marquee-style text transforms the video into an entirely new form of entertainment. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks, with the actual video included below.
Niconico Douga quietly first emerged back in December of 2006, pushing out a beta version a month later. Since then, the site has offered many unique features to its users, successfully accumulating over 30 million users as of 2012. That averages out to a whopping 440,000 new users per month. The user demographic is mostly male (with 67% men and 33% women) and most of the active users are in the 20-29 age range (about 42%). There have been over 8.7 million videos uploaded to the site in total.
In general, the site is sort of perceived as a place for otaku who typically prefer anonymous communication. However since the launch of live streaming videos, people in the mainstream have also joined the site, including but not limited to politicians, idol groups, and music bands. Currently there are almost 100 official channels that live stream content on the site. What’s interesting is that Niconico Douga allows users to sign up using Facebook credentials, and that of course requires your real name. This may have been influenced by Ustream, which uses Twitter and Facebook for sign-in.
The company behind Niconico Douga is niwango, a subsidiary of dwango which runs a music and ringtone downloading business. Niwango’s sales for first quarter of 2013 was 3.8 billion yen (or more than $41 million). Of that, one fourth comes from their premium registry that allows users to upload videos of a larger size, as well as the capability to live stream videos, create communities, and more. So far 1.8 million users have joined this premium service.
Niconico Douga is definitely a unique domestic service with no strict equivalent outside of Japan, although the site does have a multi-language interface and has been supporting English comments since October of 2011. There are services like this other different genres such as bookmarking, curation, etc, and in the future I plan to introduce you to more of these Japan-optimized sites.
This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan.
Japanese people often refer to the site as NicoDou. ↩
Just last week we reported that the up-and-coming Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode had raised a new round of funding from three VC firms. And while the company’s progress on the web appears to be going well (see our feature on TOM from a few weeks back) the company has also made some recent updates on its most prominent mobile initiative, Otaku Camera. If you haven’t tried it yet, the basic feature of the app is that it turns any photo into a manga-style picture. But earlier in the month, the company announced new downloadable Hello Kitty photo frames for the app, and today it’s rolling out Tiger & Bunny photo frames, from the famous anime TV series. Currently all frame sets are marked as ‘Free’ in Otaku Camera, but I expect that in the future we’ll see paid photo frames rolling out as well, as Tokyo Otaku Mode makes and effort to monetize. When we last heard from Tokyo Otaku Mode, we were informed that Otaku Camera has over 500,000 downloads. I think this figure will get larger, given the company’s enthusiastic base, with over 10 million fans on Facebook. For a quick video overview of Otaku Camera, check…
Just last week we reported that the up-and-coming Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode had raised a new round of funding from three VC firms. And while the company’s progress on the web appears to be going well (see our feature on TOM from a few weeks back) the company has also made some recent updates on its most prominent mobile initiative, Otaku Camera.
If you haven’t tried it yet, the basic feature of the app is that it turns any photo into a manga-style picture. But earlier in the month, the company announced new downloadable Hello Kitty photo frames for the app, and today it’s rolling out Tiger & Bunny photo frames, from the famous anime TV series. Currently all frame sets are marked as ‘Free’ in Otaku Camera, but I expect that in the future we’ll see paid photo frames rolling out as well, as Tokyo Otaku Mode makes and effort to monetize.
When we last heard from Tokyo Otaku Mode, we were informed that Otaku Camera has over 500,000 downloads. I think this figure will get larger, given the company’s enthusiastic base, with over 10 million fans on Facebook.
For a quick video overview of Otaku Camera, check out our video demo above. If you’d like to try the app for yourself, it’s available on both iOS and Android.
Japan-based Comnico has been helping many companies manage their Facebook pages over the past few years. But like many Japanese tech companies these days, Comnico has its eyes on overseas customers, and given the cultural and language barriers that come with international consulting, the company now has its eyes set on an interesting niche where it hopes to thrive. So what’s the big plan? Comnico has developed a tool that will enable companies to better manage, monitor, and promote Facebook pages on their own. I recently had a chance to catch up with CEO Masayuki Hayashi, who gave me an overview of Comnico’s new marketing suite, which the company hopes to make available to overseas customers this spring. The suite actually includes four products, which can be broken down as follows: Post Manager: This tool lets users make postings to their Facebook pages from within Comnico’s marketing suite. It has a very slick multi-user interface that includes url shortening (custom domain available), plus access to Getty Images in case you’d like to supplement your update with attractive pictures [1]. The post manager also includes a built-in image editor, making use of the Aviary API for quick cropping, addition of text,…
Japan-based Comnico has been helping many companies manage their Facebook pages over the past few years. But like many Japanese tech companies these days, Comnico has its eyes on overseas customers, and given the cultural and language barriers that come with international consulting, the company now has its eyes set on an interesting niche where it hopes to thrive.
So what’s the big plan? Comnico has developed a tool that will enable companies to better manage, monitor, and promote Facebook pages on their own. I recently had a chance to catch up with CEO Masayuki Hayashi, who gave me an overview of Comnico’s new marketing suite, which the company hopes to make available to overseas customers this spring. The suite actually includes four products, which can be broken down as follows:
Post Manager: This tool lets users make postings to their Facebook pages from within Comnico’s marketing suite. It has a very slick multi-user interface that includes url shortening (custom domain available), plus access to Getty Images in case you’d like to supplement your update with attractive pictures [1]. The post manager also includes a built-in image editor, making use of the Aviary API for quick cropping, addition of text, or other edits. Posts can then be scheduled, or saved as drafts if they require approval from others in your company.
Insights: This feature can score your Facebook page, based on a number of criteria such as your reach among both fans and non-fans, and even the reaction you are getting per post. You can even compare your score with those of your competitors, and download and view the reports Excel format if you wish.
Promotions: While it is normally very difficult and expensive to conduct a promotion or campaign on Facebook, this feature lets you create ready-made ones far quicker, letting you offer rewards to participants with relative ease.
Monitoring: It can often be a chore to keep up with user discussion on your Facebook pages. Comnico’s tool helps detect flagged words, and also makes use of human monitoring through a partner company based in Okinawa. This monitoring feature lets you view posts by time, and it also includes multi-lingual support.
Shooting for businesses big and small
And while an offering with the apparent capabilities as this one shouldn’t come cheap, Comnico will be making pricing affortable to small businesses by tiering pricing according to the number of Facebook fans a company has. So for example, a company with less than 500 fans might pay 5000 yen per month (just over $50), while one with 20,000 fans might be 200,000 per month.
Who what kind of customers does Comnico foresee using such a service? Masayuki tells me that it would be a good fit for B2C companies like restaurants, for example. He adds that the advantages of a service like this in Japan are particularly apparent given that alternatives such as Gournavi charge a certain amount to manage fans, and that’s in their own closed system. That contrasts with Facebook, which is still growing in popularity in Japan, where companies can have direct access to their own fans.
Comnico has been operating this suite in Japan and is looking at April for the release of the English version. They don’t have any specified target for how many users they’d like to acquire in their overseas expansion, but they’re looking forward to giving it a try so they can see what happens. After its work in Japan the company has over 100 clients already under its belt — many of them very recognizable — so I imagine that should lend them some credibility in the eyes of potential clients.
It’s certainly good to see another Japanese company venturing beyond the nation’s borders in the interests of expanding business. Let’s stay tuned to see how they do.
Hayashi tells me that images tend to do far better on Facebook in terms of reach and engagement. ↩
Ninja Camera is a very sneaky iPhone app from Japan which is intended to let the users take photos without anyone noticing. It was released this week, and has been ranked number one in the photo and video category since then [1], so it’s certainly popular with at least a few people. As you can see in our demo video above, Ninja Camera has three stealthy shooting modes: Silent camera mode: The normal viewfinder is displayed, but when you take a photo, there isn’t any shutter sound. Note that in Japan, camera phones are required to make this noise, although many apps allow users to get around this. Hidden camera mode: This is perhaps the most nefarious feature, as your camera’s screen shows fully functioning web browser, with a tiny camera viewfinder in the bottom corner. So even if someone is watching over your shoulder, it appears as though you are innocently browsing the web – when you are actually snapping photos [2]. Dark camera mode: This shooting mode blacks out the entire screen, making it appear as though your phone is off. But there are faintly visible shutter buttons on the bottom, letting you continue to snap off pictures….
Ninja Camera is a very sneaky iPhone app from Japan which is intended to let the users take photos without anyone noticing. It was released this week, and has been ranked number one in the photo and video category since then [1], so it’s certainly popular with at least a few people.
As you can see in our demo video above, Ninja Camera has three stealthy shooting modes:
Silent camera mode: The normal viewfinder is displayed, but when you take a photo, there isn’t any shutter sound. Note that in Japan, camera phones are required to make this noise, although many apps allow users to get around this.
Hidden camera mode: This is perhaps the most nefarious feature, as your camera’s screen shows fully functioning web browser, with a tiny camera viewfinder in the bottom corner. So even if someone is watching over your shoulder, it appears as though you are innocently browsing the web – when you are actually snapping photos [2].
Dark camera mode: This shooting mode blacks out the entire screen, making it appear as though your phone is off. But there are faintly visible shutter buttons on the bottom, letting you continue to snap off pictures.
Back in 2011 when such photo applications started to become more of a problem, an Apple Japan representative was cited by the Yomiuri Shimbun as saying that “There’s no problem as long as the developer’s stated purpose for the app doesn’t go against social ethics.”
In Ninja Camera’s app description, the developer of Ninja camera lists three example purposes for its stealthy app: shooting a sleeping baby, taking pictures of pets sensitive to sound, and taking photos in a quiet place. Ultimately, I think the responsibility does lie with the user. But in my view, an app like Ninja Camera definitely looks like it was intentionally designed for snapping covert pictures of unsuspecting ladies. If you look at one of the app’s promo photo (below and to the right) it shows a photo taken of a lady from behind — so the intent isn’t really even obscured here — even though it’s not explicitly stated.
I write this post on a Friday, so it has been released for four days now. ↩
A little digging shows that some other applications have this function, including the similarly named Private Ninja Cam. ↩
See also this story in Japanese. Designclue is a service that lets you crowdsource logo creation to freelance designers regardless of their location or nationality. It’s run by the Tokyo-based startup called Purple Cow, which recently announced it had fundraised 14.7 million yen (approximately $157,000) in a seed round from Incubate Fund and East Ventures. We had a chance to interview all the three members of the startup, Kensuke Shibata, the CEO; Kyohei Teshima, the chief global officer; and Akira Kudo, the web developer. What exactly motivated you guys to launch this service? Shibata: I was studying in high school in Canada, and our CGO Kyohei Teshima was studying in the UK. As both he and I were outside Japan, we saw a variety of services for outsourcing tasks to emerging countries. We didn’t really call it ‘crowdsourcing’ in the past, but it was an [early] form of today’s crowdsouricing concepts. Kyohei and I met each other while working at DeNA as interns. We were so inspired by the concept of The World is Flat, the best-selling book by Thomas Friedman, and started working together exploring an innovative project that might disrupt the global market. With the idea of building…
Designclue is a service that lets you crowdsource logo creation to freelance designers regardless of their location or nationality. It’s run by the Tokyo-based startup called Purple Cow, which recently announced it had fundraised 14.7 million yen (approximately $157,000) in a seed round from Incubate Fund and East Ventures. We had a chance to interview all the three members of the startup, Kensuke Shibata, the CEO; Kyohei Teshima, the chief global officer; and Akira Kudo, the web developer.
What exactly motivated you guys to launch this service?
Shibata: I was studying in high school in Canada, and our CGO Kyohei Teshima was studying in the UK. As both he and I were outside Japan, we saw a variety of services for outsourcing tasks to emerging countries. We didn’t really call it ‘crowdsourcing’ in the past, but it was an [early] form of today’s crowdsouricing concepts.
Kyohei and I met each other while working at DeNA as interns. We were so inspired by the concept of The World is Flat, the best-selling book by Thomas Friedman, and started working together exploring an innovative project that might disrupt the global market. With the idea of building up a global project-sharing platform without considering language barriers and cultural gaps, we won a grand prize award plus 3 million yen ($32,000) at an entrepreneur contest from Skylight Consulting. That’s where my colleague Akira Kudo joined the team too.
When thinking about what was the easiest category of crowdsource-able tasks [unlikely to be impeded by] language barriers, we concluded we should focus on a platform specializing in logo design. Since we started working on it, we’re haven’t been interested in business in a specific country but rather one that works in the global market. [1]
Can you tell us how the system works?
When you order logo design here in Japan, it will usually not be very cheap due to high labor costs in the country. And it can also be very hard for most Japanese people to order such work from overseas because of the language barrier. Our service allows users to easily place orders from independent foreign designers.
The website has multilingual interfaces to easily facilitate this. We’ve developed a non-verbal interface that allows users to let the designers know what kind of tastes you like or what kind of additional changes you want by just choosing selective designations or pointing [things] out over the artwork on screen. Users can receive many design proposals at affordable rates from registered designers in emerging markets.
How do you monetize this?
We charge our user almost 20% of the ordering fee as our commission (this can vary according to some order criteria) when the design artwork is delivered to the user. When a user submits the order, we’ll charge our fee including the commission. And after that user then selects one of the design proposals, Designclue will pay the designer. So, Designclue plays a sort of escrow role in terms of money flow. All payments on the platform are processed via PayPal.
What kinds of business are using the service the most?
About 50% of all orders on the platform came from Japanese startups, followed by large-sized IT enterprises which accounted for 30% of orders.
How geographically varied are the designers?
About 30% of registered designers comes from Indonesia, followed by the Philippines, the US, India, Serbia, and the UK (in descending order). There was even a South African freelance designer who could make a living for three months as long as he accomplished a single task.
It seems that in Indonesia the locals are aggressively developing their skills to make a living. Many people are using [similar services] like 99designs.com and are used to submitting their artwork ideas as side jobs. 99designs is an English language site and helps them work with Western countries. But for the Indonesian designers, we are a way to enlarge their business opportunities to non-English-speaking countries, including Japan.
Can you share any interesting metrics about your service so far?
123 design proposals are delivered for an order on average, and 95% of all the order requests are completed with users satisfied with the outcome. We have 800 designers in 60 countries, and more than 85% of all the designers came from outside Japan. We’ve handled more than 100 transactions during the last six months since the site launch.
What do you foresee for Designclue in the future?
We think we’ll be moving towards the realization of a project sharing platform, where users can easily split their tasks to small pieces and outsource to freelancers.
Designclue was chosen as one of the finalists for the SF Japan Night event that will take place in San Francisco in early March.
They’re currently hiring Ruby developers, preferably English speakers. If you are interested in joining them and being a part of a platform that may disrupt the global market, please feel free to contact them.
After this point, all three pitch in to answer various questions. ↩
According to a recent study, the fashion and interior e-commerce market in Japan was about 636 billion yen (about $6.79 billion) in 2012, a 121.5% increase on last year. Many domestic apparel brands join fashion online malls instead of developing and running e-commerce sites on their own. And as a result we’re seeing lots of buzz around these fashion online malls. While it’s likely that brands will have their own e-commerce presences soon enough, the online fashion malls which are currently so popular also have intriguing plans for the future. Let’s take a closer look at a few of the major online fashion malls in Japan (in no particular order), as well as their upcoming plans. 1. Stylife ¶ Rakuten recently acquired Stylife for 1.1 billion yen (about $11,770,000), becoming the biggest shareholder in the company. This is a smart move by Rakuten as it eager to increase its reach into the fashion space. For a long time, what differentiated Stylife from other online fashion malls was its print catalogue, Look!s, that integrated with the online mall, although the company ceased publication of the print version in March of 2012. It is now available online as a web magazine. 2….
According to a recent study, the fashion and interior e-commerce market in Japan was about 636 billion yen (about $6.79 billion) in 2012, a 121.5% increase on last year. Many domestic apparel brands join fashion online malls instead of developing and running e-commerce sites on their own. And as a result we’re seeing lots of buzz around these fashion online malls. While it’s likely that brands will have their own e-commerce presences soon enough, the online fashion malls which are currently so popular also have intriguing plans for the future.
Let’s take a closer look at a few of the major online fashion malls in Japan (in no particular order), as well as their upcoming plans.
Rakuten recently acquired Stylife for 1.1 billion yen (about $11,770,000), becoming the biggest shareholder in the company. This is a smart move by Rakuten as it eager to increase its reach into the fashion space.
For a long time, what differentiated Stylife from other online fashion malls was its print catalogue, Look!s, that integrated with the online mall, although the company ceased publication of the print version in March of 2012. It is now available online as a web magazine.
Just a month or so ago, mobile carrier NTT Docomo snatched up online fashion mall Magaseek, acquiring more than 41.67% of the company’s stock. Magaseek targets female mobile users in their 20s, and its previous owner was general trading company Itochu which still owns 25% of its shares. Similar to Rakuten, NTT Docomo’s plan is to solidify its competitiveness in fashion commerce by cooperating with Itochu, the largest general trade company in the textiles industry.
FashionWalker is another online mall which has aspirations of expanding its business to the Asian market, most notably to Korea and Taiwan. To that end, back in November of 2012 it launched an fashion e-commerce service for Korea. Its parent company is ‘World’.
FashionWalker is more content-focused compared to other online malls, creating dedicated sections for fashion stylists to introduce their latest look-books, under the category of ‘Shibuya Style Village‘.
Another fashion online mall that’s accelerating its business in the Asia region is Zozotown (operated by Start Today) which was founded way back in 2004. In addition to zozotown.jp which serves the Japanese market, the company also runs zozotown.com where items can be delivered to 82 countries. In addition to the global online mall, Zozotown will launch ZozoConnect on Feburary 28 where it will introduce international brands — especially brands from Asia — to the world. At the time of launch, the site will focus on five Korean brands, including Bratson.
This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan.
See the Japanese version of this article It has been a while since I last spoke to the folks from Rovio, the Finnish company behind the wildly popular Angry Birds mobile game. But I recently had a chance to catch up with a few members of their flock in Tokyo, as the company gears up to open a new office in the Japanese capital, likely this spring. And while it might make for a more dramatic story to say that the company is making a furious push for Japan, that’s not the case. In fact quite the opposite. They are taking it slow, and that’s how they want it. I would argue that Rovio’s Angry Birds has achieved the kind of pop culture icon status not really seen since the days when Mario Bros revolutionized gaming. But the company realizes that if it wants to permeate uber-cute Japan, which has a culture of firmly established brand icons like Hello Kitty, Anpanman, and yes, Nintendo’s Mario Bros, they need a long term game plan. Peter Vesterbacka, ‘Mighty Eagle’ [1] at Rovio explains: We want to figure out how to build a proper presence that lasts – not just for the next…
Right to left: Peter Vesterbacka, Antti Sonninen, Henri Holm
It has been a while since I last spoke to the folks from Rovio, the Finnish company behind the wildly popular Angry Birds mobile game. But I recently had a chance to catch up with a few members of their flock in Tokyo, as the company gears up to open a new office in the Japanese capital, likely this spring. And while it might make for a more dramatic story to say that the company is making a furious push for Japan, that’s not the case. In fact quite the opposite. They are taking it slow, and that’s how they want it.
I would argue that Rovio’s Angry Birds has achieved the kind of pop culture icon status not really seen since the days when Mario Bros revolutionized gaming. But the company realizes that if it wants to permeate uber-cute Japan, which has a culture of firmly established brand icons like Hello Kitty, Anpanman, and yes, Nintendo’s Mario Bros, they need a long term game plan. Peter Vesterbacka, ‘Mighty Eagle’ [1] at Rovio explains:
We want to figure out how to build a proper presence that lasts – not just for the next year or two. We want to be a leading entertainment brand, one that’s more Japanese than many of the Japanese [brands].
But at the same time, they recognize that the business models in Japan leave much room for innovation and disruption. And while the company has been active on the ground in Japan making deals with local partners, they still haven’t really made a significant marketing push in the country. I asked if they’d ever consider television ads in Japan, as that’s a common tactic among the major internet companies here – but Peter says they would likely do something else. Rovio always takes a somewhat different approach in its marketing, he notes, and that’s likely to be the case in Japan as well. Of their existing merchandising partnership with Sanrio, the makers of Hello Kitty, he explains:
It’s always important to have the best possible local partners, because we can learn a lot from them. This was the same reason we wanted to work with LucasArts on Star Wars [2].
I’m told that the downloads that Rovio is seeing from Japan still have a long way to catch up with neighboring Korea, as smartphone penetration still has much room to grow in Japan. This is another reason why playing the long game in the country might be a wise idea, because a all-out marketing push at this time could indeed be premature.
But in the interests of giving locals an idea of what Rovio and Angry Birds are all about, they recently published a sort of Japanese language primer about what Angry Birds is all about (pictured right). Antti Sonninen, Rovio’s country director in Japan, points out that the site launched just a few weeks back. This is actually a common tactic for digital companies bringing a new digital product into Japan. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – all have done similar things. They hope to answer many of the basic questions about Angry Birds here, including profiles of the different birds, as well as an explantion of in-game items.
Meanwhile in nearby China the Angry Birds brand has truly taken flight. I’m told that in a recent survey of 1,000 people that about 94% were familiar with the Angry Birds brand. The company has never been too upset about the IP infringements that usually accompany expansion into China, because it’s only a precipitate of passion for their product. Without going into too many details about their upcoming plans in the country, Peter says with a smile that “there’s a lot going on in China.”
Currently the company has a headcount of about 550 people, with 90 percent of those in Finland. But from what I can tell, the team is very adept at spreading their message, focusing their energies in the right places at the right time. Peter was recently in Russia where Rovio hopes to open activity parks in the next year, as well as push their new Angry Birds branded cola.
Looking at other top mobile games in comparison, there aren’t many that can even come close to what Angry Birds has done in terms of building such a recognizable and iconic brand. It will be interesting to see if this long term strategy works for Rovio, not just in Japan but across the globe.
If I recall correctly, I believe this is the actual title on his name card. Fun stuff. ↩
Last week we mentioned that the mobile card battle game Dark Summoner from publisher A-Team (TYO:3662) had surpassed 5 million downloads worldwide on the iOS and Android platforms. So far the title has been doing well on the top grossing app charts in both its home market and in the US. For those of you who have yet to check it out, here’s our quick video walk-through of Dark Summoner. The game isn’t really all that much different than other mobile card battle games in my view. Rage of Bahamut is a similar game, although obviously a lot more popular [1]. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call these games horrible, they do require a little bit of time to get into, and could certainly use more of an explanation for beginners. I’m curious to hear if any of our readers are playing Dark Summoner, and if you are, please leave your thoughts in the comments. Are these card battle games all the same to you? Or do they each have something unique to offer? Let us know. (And feel free to drop me a line in-game as well [2]!) We recently spoke with Cygames, the developer of…
Last week we mentioned that the mobile card battle game Dark Summoner from publisher A-Team (TYO:3662) had surpassed 5 million downloads worldwide on the iOS and Android platforms. So far the title has been doing well on the top grossing app charts in both its home market and in the US.
For those of you who have yet to check it out, here’s our quick video walk-through of Dark Summoner. The game isn’t really all that much different than other mobile card battle games in my view. Rage of Bahamut is a similar game, although obviously a lot more popular [1]. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call these games horrible, they do require a little bit of time to get into, and could certainly use more of an explanation for beginners.
I’m curious to hear if any of our readers are playing Dark Summoner, and if you are, please leave your thoughts in the comments. Are these card battle games all the same to you? Or do they each have something unique to offer? Let us know. (And feel free to drop me a line in-game as well [2]!)
We recently spoke with Cygames, the developer of Rage of Bahamut about the process of bringing that game to global users. You can read that article in its entirety here. ↩
My ID is 1459947259. You can share yours in the comments if you like. ↩
Conyac is a Tokyo-based startup that focuses on providing cost-effective translation services, leveraging crowdsourced expertise. It recently added a new service to its repertoire called Conyac for Business, and the company also announced its first overseas expansion to San Francisco. In addition to those developments, we also learned that Una Aruna Softic has joined the team to help their international marketing efforts in San Francisco. She previously worked with EverConnect.me, a social media account aggregation service that was shut down last September. We spoke with Una as well as Conyac’s CEO Naoki Yamada, about their plans to grow this translation business. Tell us about this new business service, and why you are expanding your offerings in this way. It’s called Conyac for Business, and it is designed better suit business translation needs. We started our service in May of 2009, aiming at giving individual users a way to break language barriers at affordable rates. [But] now we’re receiving more translation requests from corporate users, and that’s why we created the new service, to better serve those users. How is it different from your existing service? Our regular service provides translation services for casual communication purposes, such contacting a sales representative…
Conyac is a Tokyo-based startup that focuses on providing cost-effective translation services, leveraging crowdsourced expertise. It recently added a new service to its repertoire called Conyac for Business, and the company also announced its first overseas expansion to San Francisco. In addition to those developments, we also learned that Una Aruna Softic has joined the team to help their international marketing efforts in San Francisco. She previously worked with EverConnect.me, a social media account aggregation service that was shut down last September. We spoke with Una as well as Conyac’s CEO Naoki Yamada, about their plans to grow this translation business.
Conyac’s Una Softic (left) and CEO Naoki Yamada (right)
Tell us about this new business service, and why you are expanding your offerings in this way.
It’s called Conyac for Business, and it is designed better suit business translation needs. We started our service in May of 2009, aiming at giving individual users a way to break language barriers at affordable rates. [But] now we’re receiving more translation requests from corporate users, and that’s why we created the new service, to better serve those users.
How is it different from your existing service?
Our regular service provides translation services for casual communication purposes, such contacting a sales representative at an e-commerce site abroad when ordering. For the purpose of encouraging our (crowdsourced) translators to make a translation request very quickly, the maximum length in each ‘request unit’ was limited to [a maximum of] 720 characters. However, for the business service, the limit is extended up to 50,000 characters so that our users need not to split sentences into pieces when placing a translation order, meaning it may fit even for business documents as well.
Of course, in terms of satisfying clients with the translation quality, we also established a new qualification process to choose highly skilled translators for business needs. The business service can accept original documents for translation requests not only as text files but also in some different business document file formats such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, and Keynote Files. This feature would be really helpful for our business users, because they no longer need to replace texts in their original documents with translation results.
So why do this now?
We found there’s a need for much work coming from the social gaming industry. Social gaming developers are now intensifying their international expansion. And in terms of localizing their gaming apps with foreign languages, they have a tremendous need for translation because the release cycles of new apps and updates are very, very short. We believe our service fit them well, and that’s why we also added to our sales headcount in order to cultivate more corporate clients from the industry.
Does the recent change of your major shareholders have anything to do with this new business strategy?
Yes. So far, we have fundraised a total of approximately 40 million yen ($431,000) from Samurai Incubate, United (previously known as ngi group), and Skylight Consulting. The shares previously held by our first investor Samurai Incubate were handed over to angel investor Anri Samata, because he has many connections with our potential clients, so that he could help us.
You’re launching a new office in San Francisco. What’s the main purpose of that office?
Yes, my new colleague Una will be in charge of that, and we will be setting up a new office (or a desk) at a co-working space in San Francisco. We’ve not yet decided the location or the date of its launch, but will announce that very shortly. Basically, the main role of our SF office is to intensify our marketing efforts and gain a presence in the global startup community. Through the new office, we expect to get more new clients from the West coast who are in need of translation as well.
Do you have any plan to set up other overseas offices after San Francisco?
Yes. We’re now exploring the potential of setting up a new office in Singapore, where a number of Japanese and Asian gaming/tech startups have their offices.
The competition in the translation space is getting more intense these days. A Conyac competitor, 500Starups-backed Gengo is considered to be slightly ahead when it comes to serving businesses, as they have developed many tools and interfaces for business translation needs. In the Asian region, other startups in the translation space include OneSky and Translation Market – both from Hong Kong.
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
