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Japanese internet radio service to capitalize on popularity of AKB48 election

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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Photo via. TowerRecords Japan’s Radiko.jp is a website and mobile app (iOS and Android) that provides simultaneous broadcasts of radio programs over the internet. The service has maintained strong growth since its launch back in 2011 and has over 13 million monthly unique users as of April 2013. Over 68 commercial radio stations have joined the platform. Now Radiko has just announced that it will broadcast interviews of the top five winners of the AKB48 Election, a popular nationwide event that decides the center stage positions for the all-girl idol group. The event (sadly) might even exceed the country’s national election in terms of national interest. This 5th election is planned to take place tomorrow at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. A total of 100 minutes interviews will be broadcasted beginning the night of June 8th and will be repeated the next day. There are over 246 members fighting for limited positions, and the participating members promote themselves on their blogs and on social media such as Twitter and Google+. The candidates speeches can be viewed on the official AKB48 YouTube channel. Fans can vote by purchasing CDs which (ingeniously) function as votes. This mega pop-culture event will surely attaract a…

AKB48-electionPhoto via. TowerRecords

Japan’s Radiko.jp is a website and mobile app (iOS and Android) that provides simultaneous broadcasts of radio programs over the internet. The service has maintained strong growth since its launch back in 2011 and has over 13 million monthly unique users as of April 2013. Over 68 commercial radio stations have joined the platform.

Now Radiko has just announced that it will broadcast interviews of the top five winners of the AKB48 Election, a popular nationwide event that decides the center stage positions for the all-girl idol group. The event (sadly) might even exceed the country’s national election in terms of national interest.

This 5th election is planned to take place tomorrow at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. A total of 100 minutes interviews will be broadcasted beginning the night of June 8th and will be repeated the next day.

There are over 246 members fighting for limited positions, and the participating members promote themselves on their blogs and on social media such as Twitter and Google+. The candidates speeches can be viewed on the official AKB48 YouTube channel. Fans can vote by purchasing CDs which (ingeniously) function as votes.

This mega pop-culture event will surely attaract a wider range of fans for Radiko. Radio as a form of media is not exactly cutting-edge and has been going downhill in most places. But this old media form saw a revival in Japan when the Tohoku earthquake hit Japan in March of 2011. With so many things washed away after the tsunami, many people only had radio left as a way to connect to the rest of the world.

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5 photo apps with fantastic skin filters that Japanese women prefer

SCORE 9,495 Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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It is probably safe to assume that on every Japanese girl’s smartphone home screen, they have a photo sharing app of some sort. Instagram is pretty mainstream in the country, but other popular photo apps seems to have one thing in common: Photo filters to make your skin look whiter and smoother. Here is a list of five apps with such filters that are likely to have nabbed a spot on girls’ smartphones. Bihaku Camera ¶ Bihaku Camera has an impressive 4.2 rating on Google Play so far, and with the app’s skin-whitening and smoothening features, freckles and wrinkles magically dissappear. This app is well-known among girls and according to R25, a popular free-paper by Recruit, members of the popular pop group AKB48 are fans of the app too. MoreBeaute ¶ Available on iOS, MoreBeaute is yet another such app which is popular among females. Skin-whitening and smoothening is done automatically whenever a photo is taken or chosen from photo library. The app easily creates the sort of pore-free skin that girls dream of. Prunelle ¶ In the past few years, Japanese girls — especially those in high school and college — began wearing colored contact lenses as part of…

It is probably safe to assume that on every Japanese girl’s smartphone home screen, they have a photo sharing app of some sort. Instagram is pretty mainstream in the country, but other popular photo apps seems to have one thing in common: Photo filters to make your skin look whiter and smoother. Here is a list of five apps with such filters that are likely to have nabbed a spot on girls’ smartphones.

Bihaku Camera

BihakuCamera-icon

Bihaku Camera has an impressive 4.2 rating on Google Play so far, and with the app’s skin-whitening and smoothening features, freckles and wrinkles magically dissappear. This app is well-known among girls and according to R25, a popular free-paper by Recruit, members of the popular pop group AKB48 are fans of the app too.

MoreBeaute

MoreBeaute

Available on iOS, MoreBeaute is yet another such app which is popular among females. Skin-whitening and smoothening is done automatically whenever a photo is taken or chosen from photo library. The app easily creates the sort of pore-free skin that girls dream of.

Prunelle

Prunelle-icon

In the past few years, Japanese girls — especially those in high school and college — began wearing colored contact lenses as part of their fashion. And this photo sharing app, which was just recently released, is lets girls try out different colored contact lenses. Prunelle, which means pupils in French, has over 200 kinds of colored lenses, available in various sizes. If you find a favorite, the app allows you to purchase the product directly from the app.

DecoPuri

At traditional purikura photo booths, skin whitening filters are a default feature. DecoPuri is your own personal purikura app that comes with over 400 decorative materials including stamps and photo frames. But it also provides five levels of skin whitening and smoothning. The app also deletes the camera’s shutter sound, which can be handy for those who want to create selfies when out and about!

Megami Camera

Available for both iOS and Android, this app does more than just provide features to enhance the skin, but it also has twenty different filters for the eyes. Making your eyes sparkle or change color is just a tap away with Megami Camera. It has a 4.4 rating on Google Play, and you can see how it works in the video below.

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