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Live-streaming app TwitCasting surpasses 2 million users, but founder is a little distressed

SCORE 1,686

Takeshi Hirano 2013.03.29

See the original story in Japanese. TwitCasting is an app that allows you to stream videos from iPhone or Android handsets. The service was launched early in 2010, and there have been good numbers in terms of user acquisition: reaching 250,000 users in 2010, 750,000 in 2011, and 1.75 million in 2012. On Thursday, we had a chance to speak with Yoski Akamatsu, the CEO of Moi Corp., the company behind the app. He explained more about the services sudden growth: I feel it rapidly shifted gears last November. Since the beginning of this year, we are acquiring almost 200,000 users a month. We may surpass 4 million users by the end of this year. […] The livecast channel has 200,000 to 300,000 visitors a day, and they usually stay for about 4 to 5 minutes on average. While I invented the service, I can’t really explain what has caused the recent rapid user growth. More than a half of our entire user base is people who are younger than 25 years old. He showed us a list of livecast programs, where thumbnail portrait of users livecasting can be seen for each one. As the CEO mentioned, they are pretty…

See the original story in Japanese.

TwitCasting is an app that allows you to stream videos from iPhone or Android handsets. The service was launched early in 2010, and there have been good numbers in terms of user acquisition: reaching 250,000 users in 2010, 750,000 in 2011, and 1.75 million in 2012. On Thursday, we had a chance to speak with Yoski Akamatsu, the CEO of Moi Corp., the company behind the app. He explained more about the services sudden growth:

I feel it rapidly shifted gears last November. Since the beginning of this year, we are acquiring almost 200,000 users a month. We may surpass 4 million users by the end of this year. […] The livecast channel has 200,000 to 300,000 visitors a day, and they usually stay for about 4 to 5 minutes on average. While I invented the service, I can’t really explain what has caused the recent rapid user growth. More than a half of our entire user base is people who are younger than 25 years old.

He showed us a list of livecast programs, where thumbnail portrait of users livecasting can be seen for each one. As the CEO mentioned, they are pretty young – probably high school students, junior high school students, and teenagers. When we opened one program, it was explaining about how to put on make-up. Viewers then would leave comments on the video via Twitter.

[The sudden influx of] younger users might be caused by Atsushi Tamura, a comedian known for using the Twitcasting app on his TV show. Users visit our service with the expectation of making new friends online. They’re using it as a chat app.

The service is getting so popular so that has been featured in some magazines for teenagers, but it seems the CEO can’t keep up with this unforeseen popularity.

Compared to other similar services like Ustream or the live channels of Nico Nico Douga, the service pursues quality user communication. Instead of video quality, they are focusing on gaining real time capabilities like live radio programming, aligning the direction for the user community by adopting a real name-based membership system. But now that the younger generation shares a big portion of the user base, he has to intensify monitoring of video posts to ensure there’s no illegal activity involving minors.

TwitCasting was launched as a part of Yoski’s other startup, Sidefeed. It was spun-off in February of 2012 and incorporated as a new startup called Moi Corp.

They intend to monetize with advertising and paid-subscriptions, and currently revenue is roughly split between these two streams. The paid subscription from the Android app is showing good growth too.

The startup is now in talks with big companies exploring possible business partnerships.

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DeNA launches ‘Groovy’ music distribution platform, adding social to the listening experience

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.29

DeNA (TYO:2432), the Japanese internet giant behind the Mobage social gaming platform and the Comm messaging app, has unveiled its Groovy music player app for the Android platform. An iOS version will follow soon. It was developed using an app framework from Discodear, the music player app developed by Tokyo-based web conglomerate United. It allows users to play their favorites from a selection of more than 1 million songs, in partnership with 39 music labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Victor Entertainment. When you signs up for an account, you receive complimentary tickets worth 30 credits, with one credit allowing you to listen to a song up to three times a month. Tickets worth 17 credits are available for 99 yen (or about a dollar), and complimentary tickets will be given when you invite your friends to the service as well. Prior to the purchase of a song, users are allowed a 45-second preview. The app has also a social media function, which lets you be a ‘fan’ of a song when you listen to it more than three times. The interest graph lets you see what other users with similar tastes are listening to. This feature is…

DeNA (TYO:2432), the Japanese internet giant behind the Mobage social gaming platform and the Comm messaging app, has unveiled its Groovy music player app for the Android platform. An iOS version will follow soon.

It was developed using an app framework from Discodear, the music player app developed by Tokyo-based web conglomerate United. It allows users to play their favorites from a selection of more than 1 million songs, in partnership with 39 music labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Victor Entertainment.

When you signs up for an account, you receive complimentary tickets worth 30 credits, with one credit allowing you to listen to a song up to three times a month. Tickets worth 17 credits are available for 99 yen (or about a dollar), and complimentary tickets will be given when you invite your friends to the service as well. Prior to the purchase of a song, users are allowed a 45-second preview.

The app has also a social media function, which lets you be a ‘fan’ of a song when you listen to it more than three times. The interest graph lets you see what other users with similar tastes are listening to. This feature is also intended to promote live performances to users [1].

For more than 900,000 out of the million songs in the archive, the app can shows you lyrics while you listen. This obviously would be great preparation for Karaoke sessions, for anyone who is into that sort of thing!

Spotify-like flat-rate subscription models are attracting a lot of customers in the overseas market [2]. But DeNA figures that such models would be harder in terms of user acquisition, this according to the company’s CEO Isao Moriyasu. They have no intention to integrate the service with their gaming platform or other services, but they expect to create a social network platform specifically designed for sharing music experiences.

Korean music startup, Mironi, who we’ve recently featured in Japanese, has a very similar concept. The DeNA music app will be a formidable competitor for them in the Japanese market. ↩
Spotify is still unavailable here in Japan. ↩

news

Widgely: Community Factory and Yahoo Japan team up on multi-purpose girlie app

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.28

Community Factory, the company behind the popular purikura app Decopic, and its parent company Yahoo [1] have released their first joint widget app on the Android platform. It’s called Widgely. The theme of the app is is “Kawaii, Easy, Useful,” and as you may have guessed by now, it’s targeting young women. The app includes what are (supposedly) all the features necessary for a girl’s daily life including a clock, weather, horoscope, a camera, and a mirror (i.e. an inward-facing camera). The visual theme of the widget app can be switched between four types, allowing users to dress up their smartphone according to their mood. Users are able to start searching right from the homescreen, and they can check a variety of articles from Yahoo News within the app, integrating well with one of Yahoo Japan’s prime services. From Widgely, users can also access Decopic directly and easily. The Decopic app has over 12 million downloads and is available for both iOS and Android. This project is likely only the beginning of more collaborative efforts between Yahoo and Community Factory, and we can certainly hope to see more Kawaii apps from the team in the future. Community Factory was acquired by…

Community Factory, the company behind the popular purikura app Decopic, and its parent company Yahoo [1] have released their first joint widget app on the Android platform. It’s called Widgely.

The theme of the app is is “Kawaii, Easy, Useful,” and as you may have guessed by now, it’s targeting young women. The app includes what are (supposedly) all the features necessary for a girl’s daily life including a clock, weather, horoscope, a camera, and a mirror (i.e. an inward-facing camera). The visual theme of the widget app can be switched between four types, allowing users to dress up their smartphone according to their mood.

Users are able to start searching right from the homescreen, and they can check a variety of articles from Yahoo News within the app, integrating well with one of Yahoo Japan’s prime services. From Widgely, users can also access Decopic directly and easily. The Decopic app has over 12 million downloads and is available for both iOS and Android.

This project is likely only the beginning of more collaborative efforts between Yahoo and Community Factory, and we can certainly hope to see more Kawaii apps from the team in the future.

Community Factory was acquired by Yahoo! in September of last year ↩

news

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.

news

So you’re the new Japanese prime minister, eh? There’s an app for that!

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.23

On Friday the Japanese prime minister’s office unveiled smartphone apps for Android and iOS, with aim of giving the country’s leader more reach to among Japanese nationals. It uses a smartphone app framework called News Agent, which was developed by Tokyo-based smartphone app developer Brave Soft. The end result gives smartphone users easy access to announcements from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as well as a stream of news photos from summits and diplomatic conferences he has been attending. The app has no especially impressive features from a technical point of view, and often redirects you to the PMO’s Facebook page or Abe’s own Facebook page. However, for the younger generation who don’t subscribe to physical newspapers or watch TV news shows, it could be a good touch point for them to stay up to speed on Japanese politics. In addition, when the government has an important announcement, it will be published on the app as an official update from the prime minister, and you’ll get a notification as well. Last October, the PMO has set up an account on the Line messaging platform, which gives access to potentially over 40 million Japanese people, almost one-third of Japan’s entire population. On…

On Friday the Japanese prime minister’s office unveiled smartphone apps for Android and iOS, with aim of giving the country’s leader more reach to among Japanese nationals. It uses a smartphone app framework called News Agent, which was developed by Tokyo-based smartphone app developer Brave Soft. The end result gives smartphone users easy access to announcements from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as well as a stream of news photos from summits and diplomatic conferences he has been attending.

The app has no especially impressive features from a technical point of view, and often redirects you to the PMO’s Facebook page or Abe’s own Facebook page. However, for the younger generation who don’t subscribe to physical newspapers or watch TV news shows, it could be a good touch point for them to stay up to speed on Japanese politics. In addition, when the government has an important announcement, it will be published on the app as an official update from the prime minister, and you’ll get a notification as well.

Last October, the PMO has set up an account on the Line messaging platform, which gives access to potentially over 40 million Japanese people, almost one-third of Japan’s entire population.

On a related note, here’s some mobile apps published by governmental offices in other countries:

USA: The White House app ( iOS / Android )
UK: Official Number 10 app ( iOS )
Korea: Presidential Office “Cheong Wa Dae” app ( iOS / Olleh / TStore )

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How one Japanese fashion brand is using smartphones to connect with customers

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.22

The O2O market in Japan is expected to reach 50 trillion yen by the year 2017. Obviously smartphones will play a key role in this growing market, and brands already face consumer expectation to leverage mobile devices in as many ways as possible. Smartphone penetration for teens and consumers in their 20s is said to be around 30% to 50%. One apparel brand targeting young females is well aware of this, and is using mobile for promotion to increase in-store sales and customer communication. It’s called Lip Service. Credge, the company behind Lip Service, recently released an Android app that deploys an O2O service called Push Shop, developed by digital agency Bilcom. Push Shop allows brands to develop their own mobile apps with a geolocation enabled push notification feature. The service is available for a monthly fee starting at 9,800 yen (about $103). As a part of its mobile digital marketing strategy, Lip Service is actively using chat application Line to provide coupons and sales information to the tens of millions of users here in Japan. Lip Service has accumulated over 20,000 friends currently on the platform, and through its promotional activities its sales have grown 50% compared to the…

The O2O market in Japan is expected to reach 50 trillion yen by the year 2017. Obviously smartphones will play a key role in this growing market, and brands already face consumer expectation to leverage mobile devices in as many ways as possible. Smartphone penetration for teens and consumers in their 20s is said to be around 30% to 50%.

One apparel brand targeting young females is well aware of this, and is using mobile for promotion to increase in-store sales and customer communication. It’s called Lip Service.

Credge, the company behind Lip Service, recently released an Android app that deploys an O2O service called Push Shop, developed by digital agency Bilcom. Push Shop allows brands to develop their own mobile apps with a geolocation enabled push notification feature. The service is available for a monthly fee starting at 9,800 yen (about $103).

As a part of its mobile digital marketing strategy, Lip Service is actively using chat application Line to provide coupons and sales information to the tens of millions of users here in Japan. Lip Service has accumulated over 20,000 friends currently on the platform, and through its promotional activities its sales have grown 50% compared to the previous week.

Credge operates an e-commerce service called Atomicboxx, which sees 80% of its sales come from smartphones. On the e-commerce site, the company recently added a feature that provides real time inventory information, updated every 30 minutes. The company plans to release an iPhone version at the end of this month.

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A big year for Japanese card battle game Rage of Bahamut [Infographic]

Rick Martin 2013.03.22

Cygames hit card battle game Rage of Bagamut had a pretty incredible year in 2012, racking up more than 10 million users worldwide and owning top grossing charts in a number of regions, including 199 consecutive days in the US. To learn more about this wildly popular mobile game, check out the following infographic from DeNA (TYO:2432), commemorating the game’s first anniversary, which summarizes some of the game’s key accomplishments to date. Also check out our recent feature where we spoke to folks from Cygames and DeNA about their efforts to bring the game overseas. If you haven’t yet tried Rage of Bahamut, you can get it over on the App Store or on Google Play.

Cygames hit card battle game Rage of Bagamut had a pretty incredible year in 2012, racking up more than 10 million users worldwide and owning top grossing charts in a number of regions, including 199 consecutive days in the US.

To learn more about this wildly popular mobile game, check out the following infographic from DeNA (TYO:2432), commemorating the game’s first anniversary, which summarizes some of the game’s key accomplishments to date. Also check out our recent feature where we spoke to folks from Cygames and DeNA about their efforts to bring the game overseas.

If you haven’t yet tried Rage of Bahamut, you can get it over on the App Store or on Google Play.

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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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Alpaca bashing game inexplicably popular in Japan with 1 million downloads

SCORE 1,185

Rick Martin 2013.03.19

We’ve featured some strange Japanese mobile games here on SD Japan in the past, but this one ranks way up there among the strangest. Alpaka Evolution [1] is a simple game with simple graphics, but its quirkiness appears to have helped it past a million downloads since the game’s initial release for Android on February 5, and for iOS on February 23. The game starts out peaceful enough, with a herd of alpacas grazing in a meadow. But you control one of these alpaca, and with a tap or a swipe you can deal a knockout blow to one of your many brothers. Now, before we hear from the animal cruelty folks, I should clarify that the objective of the game is actually to not kill alpacas. But rather the goal is to absorb as many of your fallen brothers as you can, and evolve into a bigger, more powerful alpaca. The game was developed by a company called Cocosola, and many of its titles appear to be equally off the wall [2]. The app has been the top casual game on Japan’s Google Play store this week, and it has been a top 25 title for iOS for the…

We’ve featured some strange Japanese mobile games here on SD Japan in the past, but this one ranks way up there among the strangest. Alpaka Evolution [1] is a simple game with simple graphics, but its quirkiness appears to have helped it past a million downloads since the game’s initial release for Android on February 5, and for iOS on February 23.

The game starts out peaceful enough, with a herd of alpacas grazing in a meadow. But you control one of these alpaca, and with a tap or a swipe you can deal a knockout blow to one of your many brothers. Now, before we hear from the animal cruelty folks, I should clarify that the objective of the game is actually to not kill alpacas. But rather the goal is to absorb as many of your fallen brothers as you can, and evolve into a bigger, more powerful alpaca.

The game was developed by a company called Cocosola, and many of its titles appear to be equally off the wall [2]. The app has been the top casual game on Japan’s Google Play store this week, and it has been a top 25 title for iOS for the majority of time since its release on that platform.

I find it pretty fascinating that a game like this can be so popular [3]. There really isn’t anything to drive you to continue than the curiosity of seeing what grotesque shape your alpaca will mutate into. Currently the game is monetized with in-app advertising, but this might be yet another instance where brand merchandising represents a big opportunity. Who wouldn’t buy a plush mutated alpaca?

Check out our short video demo of the game above. If you’d like to try it out, you can get it on the App Store or over on Google Play. (Via Axelgames)

The game’s title literally means ‘Brother Alpaca,’ but the company appears to have used the name ‘Alpaka Evolution’ (yes, with a ‘k’ and not with a ‘c’) for English. ↩
I especially look forward to giving Bikini Cat a try. ↩
Although didn’t that ear-cleaning game also get a million downloads? ↩

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

SCORE 1,200

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.

Android

Live-streaming app TwitCasting surpasses 2 million users, but founder is a little distressed

DeNA launches ‘Groovy’ music distribution platform, adding social to the listening experience

Widgely: Community Factory and Yahoo Japan team up on multi-purpose girlie app

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

So you’re the new Japanese prime minister, eh? There’s an app for that!

How one Japanese fashion brand is using smartphones to connect with customers

A big year for Japanese card battle game Rage of Bahamut [Infographic]

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

Alpaca bashing game inexplicably popular in Japan with 1 million downloads

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

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