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Instant speculation abounds with Facebook Messenger’s Instant Games

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. Subscription media service The Information broke a story on Friday about Facebook Messenger allegedly planning to integrate HTML5 games into their platform, enabling users to play “Instant Games” directly in their chat feed. Assuming the reports are accurate, I find this development quite interesting for a number of reasons. First, this represents further confirmation that the rumors of HTML5’s demise in gaming have been greatly exaggerated (I’ve long argued as such for the reasons I cite here and here). Secondly, this feature will undoubtedly boost engagement, thus extending the share of time consumers spend on the FB Messenger platform. Combined with Instagram, Oculus, and Facebook itself, imagine how many hours per week Facebook will capture from consumers on one of its properties. Additionally, the monetization opportunities should be plentiful. Facebook could enrich its targeted advertising…

mark-bivens_portraitThis guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


html5-games-for-fb-messenger

Subscription media service The Information broke a story on Friday about Facebook Messenger allegedly planning to integrate HTML5 games into their platform, enabling users to play “Instant Games” directly in their chat feed. Assuming the reports are accurate, I find this development quite interesting for a number of reasons.

First, this represents further confirmation that the rumors of HTML5’s demise in gaming have been greatly exaggerated (I’ve long argued as such for the reasons I cite here and here).

Secondly, this feature will undoubtedly boost engagement, thus extending the share of time consumers spend on the FB Messenger platform. Combined with Instagram, Oculus, and Facebook itself, imagine how many hours per week Facebook will capture from consumers on one of its properties.

Additionally, the monetization opportunities should be plentiful. Facebook could enrich its targeted advertising profiles with deeper knowledge on users habits. FB could also grab a slice of revenue from in-game purchases or even playable HTML5 ads like those in Neko Atsume. Could Instant Games serve as a backdoor to an FB equivalent of an App Store?

Finally, I could imagine how Instant Games could enable Messenger to strengthen its position in the few markets where it is not the leading messaging app. Although I suspect FB Messenger will not dethrone WeChat in China, countries like South Korea (Kakao), Japan, Taiwan, Thailand (all three, Line) may all come back in play.

I’ll be curious to watch how Facebook’s Messenger team selects its games for this service, and in particular whether they tailor their game selection based on market vs. pursuing a U.S.-centric content strategy for instance.

Facebook unlikely to dethrone Line in Japan anytime soon

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With over 340 million registered users around the world, Line’s success as a mobile platform is difficult to ignore. Over 9.2 billion messages are sent daily, and thanks to games and stickers Line brought in 12.2 billion yen in the last quarter [1]. Line’s home market of Japan is an interesting one to examine, given that 50 million of its registered users are based there [2]. As far back as a year ago, we declared here that ‘Line is the Japanese Facebook’, a comparison referring primarily to its dominance rather than any similarity in features. But how does the social internet landscape look in Japan in 2014? Let’s take a look at a couple of recent surveys that shed some light on this. Japanese market research site Fast-Ask recently polled a group of 680 people (ranging from teenages to those in their 40s) and asked them a barrage of questions. The most interesting question perhaps was (roughly translated) “Out of Facebook, Twitter, and Line, which would present the most trouble if it were suddenly taken away from you?” Almost half of respondents (49.0%) chose Line as their most essential service, with the rest of the respondents split between Twitter, Facebook,…

Line characters, at Line HQ in Tokyo
Line characters, at Line HQ in Tokyo

With over 340 million registered users around the world, Line’s success as a mobile platform is difficult to ignore. Over 9.2 billion messages are sent daily, and thanks to games and stickers Line brought in 12.2 billion yen in the last quarter [1].

Line’s home market of Japan is an interesting one to examine, given that 50 million of its registered users are based there [2]. As far back as a year ago, we declared here that ‘Line is the Japanese Facebook’, a comparison referring primarily to its dominance rather than any similarity in features. But how does the social internet landscape look in Japan in 2014? Let’s take a look at a couple of recent surveys that shed some light on this.

Japanese market research site Fast-Ask recently polled a group of 680 people (ranging from teenages to those in their 40s) and asked them a barrage of questions. The most interesting question perhaps was (roughly translated) “Out of Facebook, Twitter, and Line, which would present the most trouble if it were suddenly taken away from you?” Almost half of respondents (49.0%) chose Line as their most essential service, with the rest of the respondents split between Twitter, Facebook, and “I don’t know.”

twitter-facebook-or-line

Similarly, when asked “Which service on average do you use most?”, 40.4% of respondents said it was Line, with Twitter and Facebook polling at 32.6% and 23.5% respectively.

One of the reasons that Line has done so well is that it has managed to attract female users as well as male. The cute characters have helped its popularity in Thailand and Taiwan especially, where the service has 22 million and 17 million registered users respectively. A number of other ‘kawaii’ Japanese apps , including CocoPPa and Snapeee have won some attention in those regions as well, where made-in-Japan cuteness appears to be popular.

Here in Japan, Line is especially popular with the ladies, as another recent survey of over 2000 young mothers showed (average age 31.4 years old). In this poll, participants were asked which internet service they use at least once a week. Overwhelmingly, 70.4% say they use line at that frequency, up more than 20% on the previous year’s survey (see chart below).

In comparison, both Facebook and Twitter were also more popular than previous years in this survey, but their growth was not nearly as sharp as Line’s over the past year. If Facebook gets its mobile act together, it could make some further progress in Japan. But I think that if anyone is going to dethrone Line in its home market, it would have to be a service born on mobile. And that isn’t Facebook [3].

line-facebook


  1. This according to Line, as of January 23, 2014.  ↩

  2. As of January 23, there are 22 million in Thailand, 17 million in each of Taiwan and Indonesia, 16 million in India, and 15 million in Spain.  ↩

  3. Facebook had about 21 million users in Japan when we last checked in.  ↩

Survey yields surprising insights into smartphone use in Japan

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Japanese software development company Just sytems has conducted a survey of 1,100 respondents ages 15 to 69 about about their usage of mobile and social media. The survey used the company’s product Fastask, an online survey and questionnaire platform that works similar to Survey Monkey. The same survey was conducted back in July of 2012, the number of smartphone users exceeded the number of feature phone users by only a little: 48% to 47.7%. Smartphone usage is more common for people in their teens, 20s, and 30s, with a surprising 75% of kids ages 10 to 20 carrying smartphones. People in their 20s owning smartphones about 70%, and 30s at roughly 61%. When asked about which mobile apps that they use most frequently in a given day, the app with the most usage time was Yahoo Japan, at about 24 minutes per day. Both male and females in their teens and 20s used social apps like Line, Facebook, and Twitter about 80 minutes per day. Teen girls use these apps more heavily than other segments, led by Line at 38 minutes, Twitter for 37 minutes, and Facebook for eight minutes per day. Respondents were also asked about the App Store’s…

Survey-Fastask-Justsystems

Japanese software development company Just sytems has conducted a survey of 1,100 respondents ages 15 to 69 about about their usage of mobile and social media. The survey used the company’s product Fastask, an online survey and questionnaire platform that works similar to Survey Monkey.

The same survey was conducted back in July of 2012, the number of smartphone users exceeded the number of feature phone users by only a little: 48% to 47.7%. Smartphone usage is more common for people in their teens, 20s, and 30s, with a surprising 75% of kids ages 10 to 20 carrying smartphones. People in their 20s owning smartphones about 70%, and 30s at roughly 61%.

When asked about which mobile apps that they use most frequently in a given day, the app with the most usage time was Yahoo Japan, at about 24 minutes per day. Both male and females in their teens and 20s used social apps like Line, Facebook, and Twitter about 80 minutes per day. Teen girls use these apps more heavily than other segments, led by Line at 38 minutes, Twitter for 37 minutes, and Facebook for eight minutes per day.

docomo-smartphone
Docomo smartphone launch, 2012

Respondents were also asked about the App Store’s price hike in October. Almost 60% of iPhone users were aware of it, and 54% noted that they are considering cutting back on the purchase of paid apps. On a related topic, the survey also found that almost 53% of iPhone users use some sort of paid app for managing their schedule, in contrast to 41% of Android users.

The fact that this survey was conducted solely online may mean that the results skewed more towards tech-savvy smarphone users. But even so, the survey gives us a decent rough idea of the state of smartphone usage in this country. The entire report can be found over on the Fastask website.

Japanese youths love Line. But is social fatigue setting in?

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Japanese mobile marketing research company Livigen conducted a survey of 200 students about their usage of social network applications. When asked about which social network apps they use most frequently, 65% of respondents answered Line, 29% said Twitter, and 5% Facebook (see chart below). Back in August at its ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ conference, Line Corporation announced that among its 230 million registered users to date, 47 million come from Japan. That’s a pretty hefty figure considering that the country’s population is about 130 million. When asked why they prefer Line, many students responded that most of their communication with friends happens there, phone calls are free, and its an easy way to get in touch with friends. Students who favor Twitter cited its ease of use, the ability to read tweets by celebrities, and the general wide variety of information, stories, and photos. Students who like Facebook say they like to find out what friends are up to, and they also like how it helps them keep in touch with friends overseas. Looking at the social space outside of Japan, we have seen quite a few reports this year about ‘Facebook fatigue’. This may also be true for social…

LINE_Hello_Friends_2013_Japan_0483

Japanese mobile marketing research company Livigen conducted a survey of 200 students about their usage of social network applications. When asked about which social network apps they use most frequently, 65% of respondents answered Line, 29% said Twitter, and 5% Facebook (see chart below). Back in August at its ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ conference, Line Corporation announced that among its 230 million registered users to date, 47 million come from Japan. That’s a pretty hefty figure considering that the country’s population is about 130 million.

When asked why they prefer Line, many students responded that most of their communication with friends happens there, phone calls are free, and its an easy way to get in touch with friends. Students who favor Twitter cited its ease of use, the ability to read tweets by celebrities, and the general wide variety of information, stories, and photos. Students who like Facebook say they like to find out what friends are up to, and they also like how it helps them keep in touch with friends overseas.

Looking at the social space outside of Japan, we have seen quite a few reports this year about ‘Facebook fatigue’. This may also be true for social networks in Japan, and not just for Facebook either. Livigen asked Line users if they feel and fatigue toward using the mobile chat service. 8.5% responded that they feel a strong sense of fatigue, while 16.5% answered that they felt somewhat tired of it. That’s a total of 25% showing some weariness. As for heavy users of Twitter, 15.5% responded that they feel some fatigue, while 7.5% said the same for Facebook.

socialnetworks-students-Line

Line and Twitter are both popular among young people, but for Facebook, kids tend to open an account as part of their job-hunting process. Although kids are connected with their friends on Twitter, its ‘at-your-own-pace’ characteristic allows for a more loose connection. In contrast, all notifications you get on Line (messages, stamps, invitation to Line game, etc.) are addressed to you specifically, and people often feel more pressure to respond.

Admittedly this survey used a very small sample, but Line is undoubtedly the dominant communication tool among kids in Japan. The closed nature of this social network provides comfort and security that many mainstream users want.

Closed can be good, but is it too closed? Figuring out the right distance to put between friends is mostly a responsibility left to the social network users. For now, Line appears to have hit the sweet spot for Japanese users, but it remains to be seen whether it stays that way.

How we socialize online is, of course, always changing.

DrawChat lets you send hand-drawn pictures over Facebook Messenger

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See the original story in Japanese. Prime Again is a Tokyo-based startup known for having developed the photo decoration app DecoAlbum. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. Recently the company unveiled a new app called DrawChat, allowing users to exchange messages using drawings and stickers. The app is available for both iOS and Android in Japanese, Thai, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and English. It costs 250 yen (or $2.99), but is currently free until September 9th as part of a limited time offer. While Line, Kakao Talk, and other messaging apps are competing fiercely in the Asia region, Facebook messaging is still somewhat inadequate when it comes to expressing yourself as you might with some mobile chat apps. While Facebook has 340 million monthly active users in the region, so companies cannot help but using for their user acquisition efforts. Send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends The Draw Chat app makes use of Facebook’s Chat API. When you use the app, it’s easy to forget that it’s even running on the Facebook platform. You can send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends, regardless of whether or not they have the app…

See the original story in Japanese.

drawchat-logo

Prime Again is a Tokyo-based startup known for having developed the photo decoration app DecoAlbum. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. Recently the company unveiled a new app called DrawChat, allowing users to exchange messages using drawings and stickers. The app is available for both iOS and Android in Japanese, Thai, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and English. It costs 250 yen (or $2.99), but is currently free until September 9th as part of a limited time offer.

While Line, Kakao Talk, and other messaging apps are competing fiercely in the Asia region, Facebook messaging is still somewhat inadequate when it comes to expressing yourself as you might with some mobile chat apps. While Facebook has 340 million monthly active users in the region, so companies cannot help but using for their user acquisition efforts.

Send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends

The Draw Chat app makes use of Facebook’s Chat API. When you use the app, it’s easy to forget that it’s even running on the Facebook platform.

You can send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends, regardless of whether or not they have the app themselves. The company hopes people will use DecoAlbum to keep track of memories with friends, and that they will use DrawChat for their instant messaging. Among Facebook’s many APIs, there are very few apps using Facebook’s Chat API. The company aspires to dominate this niche by releasing more apps using the API.

Prime Again was chosen to be included in the first batch of startups at Docomo Innovation Village. The incubator plans to hold a Demo Day event on September 26th, where startups will unveil what they’ve been working on during the last six months.

The incubator started accepting applications for the second batch of the program yesterday. For startups that want to follow the example of PrimeAgain, now is a good time to apply.

drawchat draw-chat-2

Again? Really?! More media misinformation on Facebook in Japan

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Here we go again. Yet another report (mis-)using SocialBakers stats to create the unfounded narrative that Facebook has serious troubles in Japan 1. Taylor Beck over on Fast Company’s Co.Labs blog writes “Why the Japanese Love Twitter But Not Facebook“: Facebook […] is proud of the 21 million users it claims in Japan. Despite alarming reports in June–derived from Facebook’s own self-service ad tool–that Facebook in Japan had declined by 19.5 percent in half a year, Facebook Japan’s new director told the daily Nikkei on August 14 that its numbers are fine: 86% of the 21 million Japanese are using the mobile service (versus the global average 71%), and 72% of mobile Facebook users in Japan use it daily, much higher than the global average, 57%. The “alarming reports” he mentions are based on SocialBakers figures (in turn, based on Facebook’s ad tool, as he says). Taylor goes on to cite another source for good measure: No independent data are available for Facebook’s latest performance in Japan, but The Guardian, among other media, have reported recent declines in Japan and other markets, especially on Facebook’s desktop use. But it turns out this new source is the same as the first….

Here we go again. Yet another report (mis-)using SocialBakers stats to create the unfounded narrative that Facebook has serious troubles in Japan 1. Taylor Beck over on Fast Company’s Co.Labs blog writes “Why the Japanese Love Twitter But Not Facebook“:

Facebook […] is proud of the 21 million users it claims in Japan. Despite alarming reports in June–derived from Facebook’s own self-service ad tool–that Facebook in Japan had declined by 19.5 percent in half a year, Facebook Japan’s new director told the daily Nikkei on August 14 that its numbers are fine: 86% of the 21 million Japanese are using the mobile service (versus the global average 71%), and 72% of mobile Facebook users in Japan use it daily, much higher than the global average, 57%.

The “alarming reports” he mentions are based on SocialBakers figures (in turn, based on Facebook’s ad tool, as he says).

Taylor goes on to cite another source for good measure:

No independent data are available for Facebook’s latest performance in Japan, but The Guardian, among other media, have reported recent declines in Japan and other markets, especially on Facebook’s desktop use.

But it turns out this new source is the same as the first. Here’s an excerpt from that article from The Guardian:

In the last month, the world’s largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm SocialBakers. […] Users are also switching off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook has some of its biggest followings. A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment. (bold is mine)

Nevermind that SocialBakers actually criticized The Guardian (twice) on its own blog saying that the figures are estimates intended for marketers, not journalists:

The numbers are from Facebook’s ad interface, and Facebook unlike other companies, updates this data on a pretty regular basis. No other company does that – they give you rough estimations on an irregular basis, which is not enough in todays moving social marketing world.

SocialBakers used to have charts for country user numbers (Japan’s charts used to be here), but they have now been removed because of stuff like this. The Next Web has more on the matter.

So I hope that puts it to rest. If you build alarmist Japan-hates-Facebook narratives with this particular building block as your cornerstone, you’re going to have a bad time 2.

Facebook does indeed have challenges ahead in Japan, with the meteoric growth of Line – and on this front the article had lots of good points. But overall, I don’t see any evidence of Facebook having significantly more issues than Twitter, as the link-baity headline suggests.


  1. Just to be clear, I really hesitate to do these little ‘media police’ posts. But on this site we work pretty hard to try to make sure that people understand what’s happening on the Japanese net. And while we’d like to stay positive, sometimes addressing stuff like this is necessary. Tedious, but necessary.

  2. Regarding Taylor’s peripheral assertion halfway through his piece that Twitter has caught on in China, he regrettably cites a Forbes article that is based on a very questionable Global Web Index report. I’ve already addressed that whole mess here.

Now with 21M users in Japan, Facebook looks poised for a serious push

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Thanks to Serkan Toto for pointing out some updated user numbers for Facebook in Japan. He cites the company’s managing director in Japan, Atsushi Iwashita, who disclosed to The Nikkei that the social network has 21 million monthly active users in Japan. That’s up from 19 million back in February. Serkan relays lots of other juicy stats (check them out here), but perhaps the most interesting tidbit was that Facebook plans to double its sales force in the country over the next year, and start TV advertising in the country. In Japan, TV advertising often proves as a key catalyst for social services (see Line) and games (see Puzzle and Dragons). If it does the same for Facebook then this could means a huge boost for Zuckerberg’s network. We have seen lots of interesting social media campaigns in Japan leveraging Facebook recently, and that’s only going to continue. In terms of Facebook’s own ad business, COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out recently that companies here are really starting to come on board: I was actually in Japan and Korea, meeting with advertisers just a few weeks ago, and we are seeing companies that really weren’t doing much with us a year…

nikkei-trendy-facebook-japan
Photo: Nikkei Trendy

Thanks to Serkan Toto for pointing out some updated user numbers for Facebook in Japan. He cites the company’s managing director in Japan, Atsushi Iwashita, who disclosed to The Nikkei that the social network has 21 million monthly active users in Japan. That’s up from 19 million back in February.

Serkan relays lots of other juicy stats (check them out here), but perhaps the most interesting tidbit was that Facebook plans to double its sales force in the country over the next year, and start TV advertising in the country.

In Japan, TV advertising often proves as a key catalyst for social services (see Line) and games (see Puzzle and Dragons). If it does the same for Facebook then this could means a huge boost for Zuckerberg’s network.

We have seen lots of interesting social media campaigns in Japan leveraging Facebook recently, and that’s only going to continue. In terms of Facebook’s own ad business, COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out recently that companies here are really starting to come on board:

I was actually in Japan and Korea, meeting with advertisers just a few weeks ago, and we are seeing companies that really weren’t doing much with us a year ago increasingly adopt us as part of a core part of their spend. So I remain very optimistic about our growth across Asia and the rest of the world.

Another Facebook exec Brad Smallwood, the company’s head of measurement and insight, will be speaking at AdTech Tokyo 2013 next month as well, recently announced as a keynote speaker. So if you’re in town at the time, be sure to check it out.

Top 10: Fun Facebook apps from Japan that tell you more about yourself

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Some of our readers may remember our April Fool’s Day post on crazy apps from Japan. Since then I’ve come across another series of interesting apps which in many cases leverage Facebook and peoples’ relationships on the social network. Behind them all is a single company called Eureka. And here are the apps that they’ve come up with, in no particular order. 1. Group Date Forecast¶ In Japan people don’t often go on blind dates, but instead they opt for group dates called ‘Go-kon’. There’s a person in charge of the girls side and and one for the boys side, and they are the ones responsible for bringing the hottest friends to group date. Group Date Forecast is an app that tells you who you should bring among all your Facebook friends, creating the ultimate go-kon team. 2. Facebook Invoice Checker ¶ ‘Facebook Ryokin Checker’ can roughly translates as ‘Facebook Invoice Checker’. The app calculates how much your usage fee would amount to if Facebook were a paid service. Japanese people tend to be a little more willing to pay for web and mobile services, so this idea really makes you appreciate a free service like Facebook. My invoice was…

Some of our readers may remember our April Fool’s Day post on crazy apps from Japan. Since then I’ve come across another series of interesting apps which in many cases leverage Facebook and peoples’ relationships on the social network. Behind them all is a single company called Eureka. And here are the apps that they’ve come up with, in no particular order.

1. Group Date Forecast

In Japan people don’t often go on blind dates, but instead they opt for group dates called ‘Go-kon’. There’s a person in charge of the girls side and and one for the boys side, and they are the ones responsible for bringing the hottest friends to group date. Group Date Forecast is an app that tells you who you should bring among all your Facebook friends, creating the ultimate go-kon team.

Go-kon-startingmembers

2. Facebook Invoice Checker

Facebook Ryokin Checker’ can roughly translates as ‘Facebook Invoice Checker’. The app calculates how much your usage fee would amount to if Facebook were a paid service. Japanese people tend to be a little more willing to pay for web and mobile services, so this idea really makes you appreciate a free service like Facebook. My invoice was 112,900 yen!

Facebook-invoice-checker

3. What if I was the Heroine?

This app creates a correlation diagram for an imaginary TV drama that casts you as the hero or heroine. Based on your interactions with friends on Facebook, it creates this fun diagram. In the three weeks after its release, the app was liked by 140,000 users, creating attractive illustrated diagrams with funny and catchy titles to boot.

Drama-correlation

4. What is your May Blues?

Titled ‘What is your May Blues?’, this app diagnoses what sickness you might have in the month of May. Why May? Well, ‘May Blues’ is a term commonly used by Japanese people, and it refers to the lack of motivation or passion that people often feel in May. April marks a new year at school or work, and after a busy first month, people sort of burn out. This app helps you deal with the affliction with a positive attitude.

May-Blues

5. Excuse for tardiness

Excuse for tardiness is a Facebook app that gives you good excuses for being late for work or other important occasions. The app gives you three questions to answer, like ‘do you watch the late night comedy shows?’ or ‘how many alarm clocks do you have in your room?’ Upon answering these questions, it tells you which excuse you should use — but it is presented in manga form! The app was developed for a female skin care company Dr. Ci:Labo, so the excuses tend to be a little on the cute side. When I tried it, I got “Because the cat I saw on the way to work was soooo cute”.

Excuse-for-tardiness

6. Facebook Omikuji

‘Omikuji’ is a paper fortune that you get at the beginning of the New Year at shrines in Japan. The app is no longer is service since it was provided only at the beginning of the year, but it’s a pretty interesting idea all the same. Although ‘Hatsumode’ (or the first shrine visit of the year) is a common ritual for many Japanese people, some might not be able to make it. For these people, the Omikuji app lets them to do so online. The app racked up over 250,000 Facebook likes within ten days after its release.

Facebook-Omikuji

7. Choose Friends with Flawless Skin

To help launch a new makeup powder from Clinique, Eureka developed an app called ‘Chose a friend with flawless skin’. The app works very simply. It asks you to choose five of your friends who you think have amazing skin. This made for great viral content because no one is unhappy to hear compliments about their complexion. The app has been since taken down from Facebook too, since it was for a time-specific campaign.

Tamago-hada

8. Honest Valentine Forecast

‘Honest Valentine Forecast’ analyzes your friendships on Facebook, and creates a map of how this year’s Valentine’s Day will turn out. In Japan, typical Valentine’s gifts have always been chocolates, and in Japan, girls give it to boys instead of the other way around. Since there’s a culture of even giving Valentine’s chocolates to co-workers at the office (a gesture called ‘giri-choko’, where ‘giri’ means ‘a sense of duty’). Honest Valentine Forecast predicts who your secret crush is, and who you should give some chocolate to.

Valentines-chocolate

9. Todofuken Love Map

‘Todofuken’ means ‘prefecture’ in Japanese, and this Todofuken Love Map alllows users to ask questions about love that they would hesitate to ask openly. Questions such as ‘what is your breast size?’ or ‘do you have lucky underwear?’. Interestingly, the user generated results of the questionaire are shown on a map. This app is mobile only, and is the only one on our list not integrated with Facebook.

love-map

10. How many would confess love to you?

This app hypothesizes a world that consists of only 100 men, and shows how many of these men will profess their love to you (referred to as ‘‘Kokuhaku’’ in Japanese) — possibly taking inspiration from the famous book If the World were a Village.

Kokuhaku

For many of these apps, the company will require you to you like their page first before you try them out. This is not a tactic I’m particulary fond of, but the ideas are sort of fun and they’re sure to bring you and your friends some laughs.

4 creative online marketing campaigns from Japan

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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).

suika-icecream-cake

2. A year’s worth of burgers

Mos-BurgerMos 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.

Rakuten-ultimate-snack

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).

Georgia-Campaign

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

In Japan, beers are born out of general elections

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After the emergence of the popular girl idol group AKB48, ‘Sosenkyo’, or ‘general elections’ became a common tactic for brands and companies to obtain user feedback in the form of votes. Companies have always sought feedback from customers in more traditional ways such as postcards or surveys, but now these interactions are online. One company that has excelled in leveraging online tools is beverage company Sapporo Beer. Sapporo Beer chose Facebook for its social marketing initiatives, with campaigns called ‘Hokkaido Likers’ and ‘Hyakunin Beer Lab’ (‘Hyakunin’ meaning ‘100 people’ in Japanese.) The idea was to not just to sell beer directly, but to create trends surrounding its products. Hokkaido Likers began back in April of last year, and on the Facebook page local writers and photographers are encouraged to post photos or information specific to Hokkaido. Everything is posted in Japanese, as well as in English and Chinese. The total number of likes now exceeds 800,000, which is a significant following. The Hyakunin Beer Lab launched last September. That initiative aimed to create a new line of beer based on user feedback. Every Friday night, users can join a live meeting to discuss the new beer product in Facebook comments….

100-beer-lab-

After the emergence of the popular girl idol group AKB48, ‘Sosenkyo’, or ‘general elections’ became a common tactic for brands and companies to obtain user feedback in the form of votes. Companies have always sought feedback from customers in more traditional ways such as postcards or surveys, but now these interactions are online. One company that has excelled in leveraging online tools is beverage company Sapporo Beer.

Sapporo Beer chose Facebook for its social marketing initiatives, with campaigns called ‘Hokkaido Likers’ and ‘Hyakunin Beer Lab’ (‘Hyakunin’ meaning ‘100 people’ in Japanese.) The idea was to not just to sell beer directly, but to create trends surrounding its products.

Hokkaido Likers began back in April of last year, and on the Facebook page local writers and photographers are encouraged to post photos or information specific to Hokkaido. Everything is posted in Japanese, as well as in English and Chinese. The total number of likes now exceeds 800,000, which is a significant following.

The Hyakunin Beer Lab launched last September. That initiative aimed to create a new line of beer based on user feedback. Every Friday night, users can join a live meeting to discuss the new beer product in Facebook comments. Sapporo Beer also held offline meetups and invited the more active users within its Facebook group to get involved. There were over 100,000 users participating in the campaign, and many elections were held to decide on the type of the beer, the name, and its label. After many Friday night meetings, the company found that people want to relax and drink beer, not with friends, but alone. After all the responses, the resulting beer was a little expensive — but it sold out a fews days after it hit the market.

Similarly other brands have held these kinds of elections. Haagen-Dazs Japan launched a new website to ask consumers which limited flavor of ice cream they want to taste see on sale again. There are over 24 limited flavors to vote for, and users can do so by signing in with their Facebook, Twitter, or Mixi account. For those who voted for the top flavor, 1,000 ice cream cups would be delivered. There have been over 160,000 votes in the month after the start of the campaign, and so far the number one flavor is Custard Pudding, followed by Chocolate Macademia and Caramel Walnuts follow.

Haagen-Dazs-campaign

Japanese consumers frequently see companies like Sapporo Beer appearing in traditional media like TV commercials or in magazines. But less people are watching TV these days, and they can skip commercials with the push of a button when they recorded videos. Most of the younger generation are online, and brands now have to scramble to adapt to that shift.