news

Monetizing mobile content is a piece of cake for young Japanese startup

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.08.05

Japan can be a great market for digital content, as the consumers in this country are very accustomed to paying for it. Our readers may recall our previous article about how there is a Japanese culture of paying for newsletters. One startup here in Japan is again proving there is opportunity in this space, with the firm belief that consumers will pay for good content. The platform is called Cakes, and the folks behind this mobile reading app are serving up some tasty stories to Japanese readers. We recently had a chance to briefly speak with Jun Haranaga, the CTO at Piece of Cake, the company behind the content platform, and he told us a little more about what they’re up to. Cakes launched back in June of 2012, and currently there are over 180 writers/creators on the site, with more than 2,500 posted to date. Back in April, the company nabbed three hundred million yen from two venture capital firms in Japan. In the future, the online media and traditional offline media will merge. This change is taking place already. Typical users of Cakes are of the bookworm variety, paying a weekly fee of 150 yen ($1.50) to read…

cakes-app — Mobile content platform ‘Cakes’ (cakes.mu)

Japan can be a great market for digital content, as the consumers in this country are very accustomed to paying for it. Our readers may recall our previous article about how there is a Japanese culture of paying for newsletters. One startup here in Japan is again proving there is opportunity in this space, with the firm belief that consumers will pay for good content. The platform is called Cakes, and the folks behind this mobile reading app are serving up some tasty stories to Japanese readers. We recently had a chance to briefly speak with Jun Haranaga, the CTO at Piece of Cake, the company behind the content platform, and he told us a little more about what they’re up to.

Cakes launched back in June of 2012, and currently there are over 180 writers/creators on the site, with more than 2,500 posted to date. Back in April, the company nabbed three hundred million yen from two venture capital firms in Japan.

In the future, the online media and traditional offline media will merge. This change is taking place already.

Typical users of Cakes are of the bookworm variety, paying a weekly fee of 150 yen ($1.50) to read all content available on the site. Some creators are well-known manga artists or novelists, and many of the up-and-coming creators have been carefully selected by Cakes. Cakes tries to provide the experience of being at a bookstore in an online environment, making lots of inspiring content available so you can always find something interesting on your book shelf.

Haranara explains the company’s take on the future of online media:

We think that the ultimate format of digital content is not ePublication, but rather the web. In the future, the online media and traditional offline media will merge. This change is taking place already. When this happens, we will see lots of ups and downs for all content and all players. We want to help those who write, and focus on building a cutting edge media platform.

For Cakes, writers, creators, and publishers are all potential clients, as these people all seek ways to market and monetize their content. One such initiative is the Million Seller Project, where the Japanese entrepreneur and internet tycoon Horie Takafumi began a column on Cakes. Those posts were put into a book, which was subsequently released by major publisher Diamond.

What was interesting about this new sort of ecosystem is that the book’s revenue was distributed to all involved parties, including editors and writers. Another book published in this way is called The Most Powerful Learning is Economics which so far has sold 250,000 copies.

Japan can be proud of its content and culture

Interestingly, Cakes sees potential for its business beyond Japan, and has set up offices in Singapore and Vietnam. Haranaga and his engineers are working from Singapore, and other development projects are in progress in Vietnam as well. He explains:

One of the things that Japan can be proud of its content and culture. So in the future, we definitely plan to distribute these things outside of Japan. Singapore is the hub of Asia, and we found that there are excellent engineers in Vietnam after we held an app development competition there. By establishing bases in other parts of Asia, we believe we can accelerate the development process for our platform.

Cakes released its iPhone app back in May of this year, and an Android version will be released very soon. The company is also working on its iPad app, which is expected to be released sometime between summer or fall.

Premium online content has been tried many times before, but it still struggles at times and is in need of further experimentation. There is certainly lots to learn from Japanese content ventures like Cakes, MaguMagu, or Magalry, a newsletter service operated by GREE. It will be interesting to see how Cakes will fare beyond its home country, so stay tuned to find out!

news

GREE gives up on its messaging app

gree
tellit

Masaru Ikeda 2013.08.05

Japan’s social gaming giant GREE launched a messaging app late last year. Dubbed Tellit (originally called GREE Messenger), the app was a quiet entry in a very crowded field of players like Line, Kakao Talk, and DeNA’s Comm. At the time, we understood that it was somewhat of an experimental effort — and now that experiment will be coming to a close, as GREE recently announced it will shutdown the messaging app on September 1st. The app was developed by eBuddy, a messaging app-focused company based in Amsterdam, and subsequently rebranded as Tellit to intensify the global marketing efforts. TechInAsia points out that it previously topped the free iOS rankings in Malaysia, Italy and Germany, and our own digging shows that it also reached the top of the social networking category in Thailand, Chile, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Here in Japan, the app didn’t get any TV commercial blitz that we saw competitors like Line, Comm, and KakaoTalk receive. GREE is planning to shutdown its offices in UK, UAE, Brazil, and the Netherlands this month, which reduces its foreign business locations by a half. The company also shutdown its Beijing office back in May, and is planning to reduce its…

Japan’s social gaming giant GREE launched a messaging app late last year. Dubbed Tellit (originally called GREE Messenger), the app was a quiet entry in a very crowded field of players like Line, Kakao Talk, and DeNA’s Comm. At the time, we understood that it was somewhat of an experimental effort — and now that experiment will be coming to a close, as GREE recently announced it will shutdown the messaging app on September 1st.

The app was developed by eBuddy, a messaging app-focused company based in Amsterdam, and subsequently rebranded as Tellit to intensify the global marketing efforts. TechInAsia points out that it previously topped the free iOS rankings in Malaysia, Italy and Germany, and our own digging shows that it also reached the top of the social networking category in Thailand, Chile, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.

Here in Japan, the app didn’t get any TV commercial blitz that we saw competitors like Line, Comm, and KakaoTalk receive.

GREE is planning to shutdown its offices in UK, UAE, Brazil, and the Netherlands this month, which reduces its foreign business locations by a half. The company also shutdown its Beijing office back in May, and is planning to reduce its work force in its Korea office by 30%. The focus of its international operations are expected to shift to San Francisco, though it still has its studio and office in Korea and its GREE Ventures operation in Singapore.

Some of our readers may remember that there were reports that DeNA recently cut back operations on its Comm messaging app. For GREE and DeNA, it’s probably necessary for them to find new frontiers where they can find more success.

news

As Puzzle & Dragons expands, complementary content springs up too

Rick Martin 2013.08.05

GungHo Entertainment’s hit game Puzzle & Dragons is probably the most successful mobile game in history, at least in terms of revenue. In the last quarter, the game was making almost $5 million per day. The game has 17 million users in its home market of Japan, but up until just recently we haven’t had many metrics on how it has been doing in North America [1]. Now the game has now reached the 1 million downloads mark in that region, which is still not very much – but it’s a good start. P&D peaked number 7 on the top grossing charts, and it will be interesting to see if it can making good money in that market. Most people outside Japan likely still relatively new to the game. And speaking as a fan of the game myself, I admit it can be a little tricky to understand at first. I’ve given a little bit of an introduction and how-to video for Puzzle & Dragons here if you’d like to check it out. But one of the reasons that I’m optimistic about P&D is the fact that we’ve seen various peripheral fan content and utilities springing up around it. There…

GungHo Entertainment’s hit game Puzzle & Dragons is probably the most successful mobile game in history, at least in terms of revenue. In the last quarter, the game was making almost $5 million per day.

The game has 17 million users in its home market of Japan, but up until just recently we haven’t had many metrics on how it has been doing in North America [1]. Now the game has now reached the 1 million downloads mark in that region, which is still not very much – but it’s a good start. P&D peaked number 7 on the top grossing charts, and it will be interesting to see if it can making good money in that market.

Most people outside Japan likely still relatively new to the game. And speaking as a fan of the game myself, I admit it can be a little tricky to understand at first. I’ve given a little bit of an introduction and how-to video for Puzzle & Dragons here if you’d like to check it out. But one of the reasons that I’m optimistic about P&D is the fact that we’ve seen various peripheral fan content and utilities springing up around it. There is the Puzzle & Dragon Database, the Puzzle & Dragon Forum, and an active sub-Reddit. In addition, their Facebook page now has over 42,000 fans.

And recently there is also the app PadGuide which is a really big help for newcomers to the game. In P&D, there are lots of events that suddenly occur which offer an opportunity to collect rare monsters – but the problem is that you don’t really know when they are going to happen. What PadGuide offers is a calendar of upcoming events so that you can be a little more opportunistic about when you play – you can even set alarms for specific events.

The app also has a library of the games monsters and dungeons, which is handy if you need to check what monsters you’ll meet so that you can prepare your team accordingly.

The app comes from Korean developer D&Tech Consulting, and is available for free with some ads displayed. Surprisingly this app recently broke into the top ten in South Korea’s iOS Utilities category. That’s not too bad for a simple game-tips app of this sort.

On a related note, Puzzle & Dragons also recently surpassed 1 million users in Korea. So GungHo’s strategy is clearly to focus on mature mobile markets where consumers are known to spend money.

It will be interesting to see if they make a move to go after the relatively mature markets of Taiwan and Hong Kong too, perhaps as a testing ground before later hitting the larger but less lucrative mainland China market [2].

bbs.pndchina.com, an active Chinese chat forum for P&D

Mostly we have just had app store rankings to rely on, which shot up significantly in the past month due to a collaboration with Supercell. ↩
There are lots of fans in China too, even though the game is not officially there yet (not to my knowledge, anyhow). It is available on various app stores in the country, such as Wandoujia. ↩

news

Japan’s Mediba scoops up ad tech startup for $10M

Takeshi Hirano 2013.08.05

See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Nikkei reported earlier today that mobile ad company Mediba has taken over ScaleOut, a Tokyo-based ad tech startup. The purchase price is reportedly 1 billion yen, or approximately $10 million. Mediba is an ad-focused subsidiary of Japan’s second largest telco KDDI. Some of our readers may recall that the company acquired ad-network Nobot back in August of 2011. ScaleOut runs a demand-side platform (DSP) which allows digital ad buyers to do more through a single interface. For instance, when you place an ad the platform typically helps you determine which network yields the best cost performance. In this space, we’ve seen more than 20 companies already enter the market, including Japanese internet giants CyberAgent and GMO, as well as FreakOut which raised more than $5 million back in March from Yahoo Japan. To learn more about the acquisitions that have happened in Japan in recent years, you can find out more on our acquisitions timeline. We’re also preparing bring you a special interview with the startup’s CEO Daisuke Yamazaki, so please stay tuned for that as well.

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Nikkei reported earlier today that mobile ad company Mediba has taken over ScaleOut, a Tokyo-based ad tech startup. The purchase price is reportedly 1 billion yen, or approximately $10 million. Mediba is an ad-focused subsidiary of Japan’s second largest telco KDDI. Some of our readers may recall that the company acquired ad-network Nobot back in August of 2011.

ScaleOut runs a demand-side platform (DSP) which allows digital ad buyers to do more through a single interface. For instance, when you place an ad the platform typically helps you determine which network yields the best cost performance.

In this space, we’ve seen more than 20 companies already enter the market, including Japanese internet giants CyberAgent and GMO, as well as FreakOut which raised more than $5 million back in March from Yahoo Japan.

To learn more about the acquisitions that have happened in Japan in recent years, you can find out more on our acquisitions timeline.

We’re also preparing bring you a special interview with the startup’s CEO Daisuke Yamazaki, so please stay tuned for that as well.

news

Star Festival raises $10M to expand innovative bento box business

Takeshi Hirano 2013.08.05

See the original story in Japanese. Star Festival, the Japanese startup behind Bento box delivery and catering service, Gochikuru.com, announced today it has raised 1 billion yen (or about $10 million) from Jafco, one of Japan’s leading VC firms. With these funds, the company will expand its service to areas all around the country. Currently their service is available only in the five urban areas of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, and Fukuoka. Since its launch back in 2009, Gochikuru has been providing a variety of meals from its partner lunch vendors. To date they have partnered with more than 210 lunch-box brands and served more than 3.2 million users. With these new funds, the company plans to add customer representatives and improve its logistics and distribution network. For example, it will provide lunch-box line-ups from famous Tokyo sushi brands to consumers living in the southern island of Okinawa. This is typically impossible because of the distances, but it can be done in partnership with local lunch vendors that can follow recipes provided by a particular sushi brand. It is really interesting to see the company cultivating a license/production business in the food market. There are great opportunities in this industry,…

See the original story in Japanese.

Star Festival, the Japanese startup behind Bento box delivery and catering service, Gochikuru.com, announced today it has raised 1 billion yen (or about $10 million) from Jafco, one of Japan’s leading VC firms. With these funds, the company will expand its service to areas all around the country. Currently their service is available only in the five urban areas of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, and Fukuoka.

Since its launch back in 2009, Gochikuru has been providing a variety of meals from its partner lunch vendors. To date they have partnered with more than 210 lunch-box brands and served more than 3.2 million users.

With these new funds, the company plans to add customer representatives and improve its logistics and distribution network. For example, it will provide lunch-box line-ups from famous Tokyo sushi brands to consumers living in the southern island of Okinawa. This is typically impossible because of the distances, but it can be done in partnership with local lunch vendors that can follow recipes provided by a particular sushi brand.

It is really interesting to see the company cultivating a license/production business in the food market. There are great opportunities in this industry, one often overlooked by most in the startup space.

news

Japan’s Mixi unveils a mobile photo sharing app — but what’s so special about it?

Takeshi Hirano 2013.08.03

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese social networking giant Mixi recently unveiled a mobile photo sharing app called Plannah. It is available for iOS in Japanese, English, and Korean, and an Android version will follow soon. The app is the forth production from the company’s innovation initiative, which has previously developed mobile app testing environment DeployGate and photobook printing service Nohana. Plannah allows you to share photos with your friends as albums. It shows you photos on calendar and helps you remember where and what you are doing and with whom. When I heard about the app for the first time, I had many questions – not about how to use the app or its concept, but rather, why bring out the app now when there are so many established alternatives? Our readers may recall a similar mobile photo app called my365. It allows you to see photos in a calendar view, but there’s no feature for sharing photos with friends. Beyond Japan, New York-based startup Kaptur has acquired 250 million photos from 60 million users and fundraised $2 million — but it is still figuring out how to monetize. Other similar apps include Linea, Albumatic, Familio and Cluster…

The Plannah development team at Mixi's Innovation Center — The Plannah development team at Mixi’s Innovation Center

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese social networking giant Mixi recently unveiled a mobile photo sharing app called Plannah. It is available for iOS in Japanese, English, and Korean, and an Android version will follow soon. The app is the forth production from the company’s innovation initiative, which has previously developed mobile app testing environment DeployGate and photobook printing service Nohana.

Plannah allows you to share photos with your friends as albums. It shows you photos on calendar and helps you remember where and what you are doing and with whom.

When I heard about the app for the first time, I had many questions – not about how to use the app or its concept, but rather, why bring out the app now when there are so many established alternatives?

Our readers may recall a similar mobile photo app called my365. It allows you to see photos in a calendar view, but there’s no feature for sharing photos with friends. Beyond Japan, New York-based startup Kaptur has acquired 250 million photos from 60 million users and fundraised $2 million — but it is still figuring out how to monetize. Other similar apps include Linea, Albumatic, Familio and Cluster — but none of these seem to be particularly hot according to my own research.

The team’s hypothesis is that the smartphone shift has reached not only tech-savvy users but the average consumer. One team member explained:

Since smartphones are now wide spread in the Japanese market, users now have more chances to shoot casual photos. But they are typically forced to use various apps for multiple purposes.

Some smartphone users these days have thousands of photos stores on their smartphones. For Mixi, if it can provide a service very much focused on sharing photos, it might cause a market disruption since the space currently has no dominant app right now.

We’re curious to see how they will fare moving forward. The team understands that the business model will be hard to nail down, but the key factor will be how long the app can ride the smartphone wave.

news

Yahoo Japan acquires e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic

Masaru Ikeda 2013.08.03

Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) announced recently that it has taken over leading Japanese e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic. Financial details were not disclosed. Since its launch back in 2001, the latter has been a provider of price comparison sites and commerce-focused vertical media such as Travel.jp, Hotel.jp, and Coneco.net to Japanese online consumers. The company is also known to have invested in Indonesian price comparison site Telunjuk and Singapore’s travel metasearch service Flocations. Upon the acquisition, the company was split into two companies corresponding to different business fields. One company rebranded as Osenikku and will continue operating Coneco.net. And the CEO formed a new company called Venture Republic, which take care of the travel-related media. As a result, the comparison site business has been entirely handed over to Yahoo Japan. Since December of 2010, Venture Republic has been providing user-generated product reviews on consumer products in Yahoo Japan’s e-commerce channel. With the acquisition, the portal giant aims to provide a better user experience to its e-commerce customers. Venture Republic was founded by Japanese businessman Kei Shibata back in 2001, and subsequently listed on the JASDAQ market back in 2009. Later on it was delisted when he bought back its shares.

Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) announced recently that it has taken over leading Japanese e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic. Financial details were not disclosed.

Since its launch back in 2001, the latter has been a provider of price comparison sites and commerce-focused vertical media such as Travel.jp, Hotel.jp, and Coneco.net to Japanese online consumers. The company is also known to have invested in Indonesian price comparison site Telunjuk and Singapore’s travel metasearch service Flocations.

Upon the acquisition, the company was split into two companies corresponding to different business fields. One company rebranded as Osenikku and will continue operating Coneco.net. And the CEO formed a new company called Venture Republic, which take care of the travel-related media. As a result, the comparison site business has been entirely handed over to Yahoo Japan.

Since December of 2010, Venture Republic has been providing user-generated product reviews on consumer products in Yahoo Japan’s e-commerce channel. With the acquisition, the portal giant aims to provide a better user experience to its e-commerce customers.

Venture Republic was founded by Japanese businessman Kei Shibata back in 2001, and subsequently listed on the JASDAQ market back in 2009. Later on it was delisted when he bought back its shares.

news

DeNA and Docomo joint venture empowers amateur comic and novel creators

Rick Martin 2013.08.02

Everystar is a joint venture between DeNA and NTT Docomo that allows people to publish and distribute their own comics and novels for consumption on mobile devices [1]. While most of the content is available for free, some of it is paid as well, with those who sell their works collecting 40% of royalties from published works. Normally those publishers are professionals, but today it was announced that Everystar will be allowing all users to publish and collect 80% of their royalties for a limited time campaign. The promotion will run until December 31, 2013, during which time if any user wishes to sell their content on the Everystar platform, they can opt to do so. To date there are more than two million works listed on the site, with some notable success stories. For example, the King Game keitai novel saw great success on the platform, and even went on to publish on Amazon, subsequently selling 4.6 million physical books and comic books. The Everystar service sees over one million daily unique users, which makes it a valuable outlet for aspiring creators to reach an audience. Having originally launched back in 2010, it’s already a profitable business for its…

Everystar is a joint venture between DeNA and NTT Docomo that allows people to publish and distribute their own comics and novels for consumption on mobile devices [1]. While most of the content is available for free, some of it is paid as well, with those who sell their works collecting 40% of royalties from published works.

Normally those publishers are professionals, but today it was announced that Everystar will be allowing all users to publish and collect 80% of their royalties for a limited time campaign.

The promotion will run until December 31, 2013, during which time if any user wishes to sell their content on the Everystar platform, they can opt to do so.

To date there are more than two million works listed on the site, with some notable success stories. For example, the King Game keitai novel saw great success on the platform, and even went on to publish on Amazon, subsequently selling 4.6 million physical books and comic books. The Everystar service sees over one million daily unique users, which makes it a valuable outlet for aspiring creators to reach an audience. Having originally launched back in 2010, it’s already a profitable business for its operators.

Over the past few years I’ve developed the habit of referring to DeNA as just a mobile gaming company. And while gaming is still its bread and butter business, it’s interesting to see that company actually has diverse internet offerings, with services like DeNA Shopping, its Groovy music app, and its social network for seniors called Shumito Club.

The venture is 70% owned by DeNA and 30% by Docomo. ↩

news

Hey Stinky! Japanese website sends anonymous body odor notifications

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.08.02

The humid summer in Japan makes many of us extra conscious about how we smell. Perhaps you’re packed into a rush hour train huddled among bunch of people without much space to breath. But that situation might be even more difficult is when you know someone — maybe a co-worker or a friend — who is struggling with a case of body odor. Maybe they’re not even aware of it themselves. You may not want to tell the person directly, and you certainly don’t want to hurt their feelings. In this sort of situation, Wakiga kokucchi might be the easy solution you’ve been looking for. The website’s name roughly translates as ‘Coming out with armpit odor’, and it works in a very simple way, sending an anonymous email to the recipient when you input their email address. Just chose the location of where the person resides, and the email is sent out. The recipient will never know who it was exactly who sent the mail. So far, there have been 74 people who have been notified of their smell by Wakiga Kokucci. This sort of service is a little bit harsh but maybe in some serious cases, it might be…

The humid summer in Japan makes many of us extra conscious about how we smell. Perhaps you’re packed into a rush hour train huddled among bunch of people without much space to breath. But that situation might be even more difficult is when you know someone — maybe a co-worker or a friend — who is struggling with a case of body odor. Maybe they’re not even aware of it themselves.

You may not want to tell the person directly, and you certainly don’t want to hurt their feelings. In this sort of situation, Wakiga kokucchi might be the easy solution you’ve been looking for.

The website’s name roughly translates as ‘Coming out with armpit odor’, and it works in a very simple way, sending an anonymous email to the recipient when you input their email address. Just chose the location of where the person resides, and the email is sent out. The recipient will never know who it was exactly who sent the mail.

So far, there have been 74 people who have been notified of their smell by Wakiga Kokucci.

This sort of service is a little bit harsh but maybe in some serious cases, it might be a reasonable way of informing without disrupting your relationship with that person.

The site wisely provides some tips and cautions for using the service. It is best not to use it with someone who is already aware of their problem. Furthermore, the site will not be responsible for any subsequent troubles that occur as a result of using the site.

news

4 creative online marketing campaigns from Japan

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.08.02

Yesterday we wrote about how Japanese beverage company Suntory is leveraging Facebook to collect user feedback to develop new products. Many other Japanese companies are using online tools in interesting ways as well. And here is a short list of a few of the more creative examples we have found. 1. Build your own ice cream cake ¶ Suica card is an IC card that many Japanese people use for payments on their commute. View Card, the company behind these pass cards, has collaborated with Lotte Ice for a one-day promotion. Recently, there was a Twitter campaign where users combine 18 Suica Bar watermelon slice popsicles to create a whole watermelon 1. On July 27th View Card gave consumers who signed up for a Suica card (with a credit card feature) 18 popsicles to create this unique ice cream cake (see photo below). 2. A year’s worth of burgers ¶ Mos Burger is a popular hamburger franchise in Japan. The company differentiates itself from other fast food chains with its made-after-order fresh food. Beginning on August 1st, the company started a Twitter/Facebook photo contest asking people to post photos that make them smile. Winners will receive various awards, including a…

Yesterday we wrote about how Japanese beverage company Suntory is leveraging Facebook to collect user feedback to develop new products. Many other Japanese companies are using online tools in interesting ways as well. And here is a short list of a few of the more creative examples we have found.

1. Build your own ice cream cake ¶

Suica card is an IC card that many Japanese people use for payments on their commute. View Card, the company behind these pass cards, has collaborated with Lotte Ice for a one-day promotion. Recently, there was a Twitter campaign where users combine 18 Suica Bar watermelon slice popsicles to create a whole watermelon ¹. On July 27th View Card gave consumers who signed up for a Suica card (with a credit card feature) 18 popsicles to create this unique ice cream cake (see photo below).

2. A year’s worth of burgers ¶

Mos Burger is a popular hamburger franchise in Japan. The company differentiates itself from other fast food chains with its made-after-order fresh food. Beginning on August 1st, the company started a Twitter/Facebook photo contest asking people to post photos that make them smile. Winners will receive various awards, including a Mos Card which you can use to buy a year’s worth of Mos Burgers (a signature burger at the franchise). 320 yen per burger times 365 days would total 116,800 yen (or about $1,175) worth. Not bad!

3. A life supply of snack bars ¶

This is a campaign currently being held on Japan’s biggest online mall, Rakuten, asking consumers to decide on their favorite two snacks. If you were to chose one snack for the rest of your life, which one would it be? The two snacks competing are both a very popular among Japanese people: Happy Turn and Umaibo. In fact, Umaibo is so popular that there are even Umaibo mobile games. Anyone who has liked the Rakuten Facebook page can participate, and one winner will be chosen for each snack. For a bag of Happy Turn, the appropriate consumption per month according to the manufacturer is three bags, so the winner will receive 3,600 bags, or enough to last for 100 years.

4. More heat, more money! ¶

Georgia Coffee is manufactured by Coca Cola Japan, and the brand recently held a campaign on Twitter, awarding a daily winner with a cash prize and a box of Georgia coffee. The company launched a special website where it posts Georgia- and summer-related topics per day, such as ‘What words would you use to toast with a super cold can of Georgia?’ The amount of cash awarded is decided by the hottest recorded temperature in Japan that day, with 10,000 yen being awarded for every additional degree over 30 degrees celcius. So if the hottest temperature is 36.6 degrees, the winner will receive 70,000 yen (or $700).

‘Suica’ means watermelon in Japanese, and this is a popsicle that takes the shape of a watermelon slice. ↩

News

Monetizing mobile content is a piece of cake for young Japanese startup

GREE gives up on its messaging app

As Puzzle & Dragons expands, complementary content springs up too

Japan’s Mediba scoops up ad tech startup for $10M

Star Festival raises $10M to expand innovative bento box business

Japan’s Mixi unveils a mobile photo sharing app — but what’s so special about it?

Yahoo Japan acquires e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic

DeNA and Docomo joint venture empowers amateur comic and novel creators