After a long day at work on a hot summer day, perhaps you feel like grabbing a beer — but it can be hard to get a hold of friends at the last minute. Now there is an app that helps you find drinking buddies of the opposite sex in your neighborhood. It’s called Kanpai Match (Kanpai meaning ‘cheers’ in Japanese). Kanpai Match is presented as a Facebook app where users can enter information such as their initials, location, topics of interest, and profiles. The app then makes a recommendation everyday at 5pm, suggesting a possible drinking buddy in a nearby place. The app only recommends people of the opposite sex, so this may be more of a dating app than a casual drinking app. After seeing their suggested match of the day, users can push the ‘Let’s Drink’ button to confirm the meet. When a match is completed, the app can be used to send each other messages and discuss the details of the outing. The company behind Kanpai Match is SVC, a company that provides a series of networking apps. Its Tomokore app lets you to discover new friends on popular chat applications like Line, Skype, or KakaoTalk….
After a long day at work on a hot summer day, perhaps you feel like grabbing a beer — but it can be hard to get a hold of friends at the last minute. Now there is an app that helps you find drinking buddies of the opposite sex in your neighborhood. It’s called Kanpai Match (Kanpai meaning ‘cheers’ in Japanese).
Kanpai Match is presented as a Facebook app where users can enter information such as their initials, location, topics of interest, and profiles. The app then makes a recommendation everyday at 5pm, suggesting a possible drinking buddy in a nearby place. The app only recommends people of the opposite sex, so this may be more of a dating app than a casual drinking app.
After seeing their suggested match of the day, users can push the ‘Let’s Drink’ button to confirm the meet. When a match is completed, the app can be used to send each other messages and discuss the details of the outing.
The company behind Kanpai Match is SVC, a company that provides a series of networking apps. Its Tomokore app lets you to discover new friends on popular chat applications like Line, Skype, or KakaoTalk. Another one of its apps is Keijiban for Pazudora (‘Pazudora’ is a sort of Japanese portmanteau of Puzzle and Dragons) which is a dedicated bulletin board where users can find partners to assist them in the game.
According to new research by Piper Jaffray, teens are growing tired of popular web destinations like Facebook and Youtube. They are moving on to sites like Reddit, Twitter, Vine, 4chan, and even SnapChat. But is this also true in Japan? Video Research Interative conducted a survey that might have the answer. The survey was done in Janurary of this year, and it found that the most frequently visited site among university students is Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), followed by Google, Facebook, and Youtube. In comparison to teenagers, university students preferred sites like Facebook and Hatena, whereas teenagers preferred Youtube, FC2, and Ameba. Hatena operates series of web services like Hatena Diary, Jinriki Search Hatena (Jinriki means manpower in English), and the Japanese Delicious equivalent Hatena Bookmark. Ameba operates a lineup of services as well, but is mostly known for its blogging platform. The smartphone penetration of survey respondents has grown from 15.1% in November of 2010 to 43.5% in 2011, and 68.9% in same period last year. Many university students decided to switch from feature phones to smartphones when beginning their job-hunting in order to check for updated information and emails on the go. To keep up with the rapidly shifting…
According to new research by Piper Jaffray, teens are growing tired of popular web destinations like Facebook and Youtube. They are moving on to sites like Reddit, Twitter, Vine, 4chan, and even SnapChat. But is this also true in Japan? Video Research Interative conducted a survey that might have the answer.
The survey was done in Janurary of this year, and it found that the most frequently visited site among university students is Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), followed by Google, Facebook, and Youtube. In comparison to teenagers, university students preferred sites like Facebook and Hatena, whereas teenagers preferred Youtube, FC2, and Ameba. Hatena operates series of web services like Hatena Diary, Jinriki Search Hatena (Jinriki means manpower in English), and the Japanese Delicious equivalent Hatena Bookmark. Ameba operates a lineup of services as well, but is mostly known for its blogging platform.
The smartphone penetration of survey respondents has grown from 15.1% in November of 2010 to 43.5% in 2011, and 68.9% in same period last year. Many university students decided to switch from feature phones to smartphones when beginning their job-hunting in order to check for updated information and emails on the go.
To keep up with the rapidly shifting interests of young people, Japanese companies are coming up with different strategies. CyberAgent, for example created a dedicated team for girls’ products back in December of 2012.
The smartphone shipping volume grew 146% compared to last year, and one survey (by Markezine conducted in August of 2012) suggests that one in five girls use their smartphone for longer than ten hours a day. Smapo, the Japanese equivalent of ShopKick that we covered in a past article, is finding new partners for female brands to better satisfy this growing segment.
What is the major difference between Japan’s wildly popular Line chat app and Facebook Messenger? It’s stamps. But not anymore, thanks to a Tokyo-based company called Pickles. The company just released a chat app called Stamp Messenger which brings stamps into your Facebook chat — provided you use their app. Users can simply log into Stamp Messenger using their Facebook credentials, and then send messages and stamps to Facebook friends. Of course, the recipient must also have the app to view the stamps — but if they don’t, they’ll simply see a link to the stamp image (along with a link to the app!) instead of the stamp itself. There are over 88 kinds of free stamps available. And over on the stamp store, there have been some stamps created in collaboration with companies, like the Kanpai stamps that were created with Asahi Beer. Considering that many Facebook users in Japan are working professionals, I’m sure they’ll find these Kanpai stamps convenient as they finish up their work day! This first version of the app seems decent, although we did run into some issues with duplicate messages. But it’s a pretty great idea, one that perhaps Facebook should have tried…
What is the major difference between Japan’s wildly popular Line chat app and Facebook Messenger? It’s stamps. But not anymore, thanks to a Tokyo-based company called Pickles. The company just released a chat app called Stamp Messenger which brings stamps into your Facebook chat — provided you use their app.
Users can simply log into Stamp Messenger using their Facebook credentials, and then send messages and stamps to Facebook friends. Of course, the recipient must also have the app to view the stamps — but if they don’t, they’ll simply see a link to the stamp image (along with a link to the app!) instead of the stamp itself.
There are over 88 kinds of free stamps available. And over on the stamp store, there have been some stamps created in collaboration with companies, like the Kanpai stamps that were created with Asahi Beer. Considering that many Facebook users in Japan are working professionals, I’m sure they’ll find these Kanpai stamps convenient as they finish up their work day!
This first version of the app seems decent, although we did run into some issues with duplicate messages. But it’s a pretty great idea, one that perhaps Facebook should have tried itself. Check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the app works.
Stamp Messenger is currently available on iOS, and will soon be released on Android as well.
Typically graduating students in Japan begin their job-hunting process in the fall in their junior year, and spend around six months to a year searching for the best employer. The state of economy certainly has has impact on the job market too. According to Nikkei, the job openings to applications ratio for big companies with over 5,000 employees is as small as 0.60. But an interesting student recruiting service is trying to lend them a hand. It’s called Wild Card, and it just recently launched in beta. With this new service, which is integrated with Facebook, students and employers can find a better match faster and easier. Students can start by connecting to their Facebook account and upload proof of the job offers they have received, such as an email or some sort of document. After careful screening, other companies using Wild Card can search for promising students, and seeing that they have already passed one screening process, they can reach out to them knowing the student has already met the initial criteria. In this way, talented students can skip the hassle of filling out endless application forms, taking recruiting tests, and doing group interviews. The founder of Wild Card,…
Typically graduating students in Japan begin their job-hunting process in the fall in their junior year, and spend around six months to a year searching for the best employer. The state of economy certainly has has impact on the job market too. According to Nikkei, the job openings to applications ratio for big companies with over 5,000 employees is as small as 0.60.
But an interesting student recruiting service is trying to lend them a hand. It’s called Wild Card, and it just recently launched in beta.
With this new service, which is integrated with Facebook, students and employers can find a better match faster and easier. Students can start by connecting to their Facebook account and upload proof of the job offers they have received, such as an email or some sort of document. After careful screening, other companies using Wild Card can search for promising students, and seeing that they have already passed one screening process, they can reach out to them knowing the student has already met the initial criteria. In this way, talented students can skip the hassle of filling out endless application forms, taking recruiting tests, and doing group interviews.
The founder of Wild Card, Tairo Moriyama, further elaborates:
From my experience in HR, I thought it would be great if competent students with job offers from one company could skip the early recruiting process with other companies. Because the recruiting of brilliant new graduates is very competitive, some students feel pressured to commit to one company after receiving a job offer. But students should be allowed to see other options and figure out what’s best for them.
The site plans to go public in May and has already seen 500 students register in the first week. Wild Card is a great idea, in my view, because one job offer opens many doors to other potential jobs, and for students who live in the suburbs it will save them a lot of time and money.
Wild Card is convenient for companies too, because students on the site have already passed screening by other companies, making the recruiting process more efficient. The service uses a performance-based fee model, charging the company if the prospect is hired.
Wild Card has plans to release a mid-career version in the near future, so stay tuned for that as well.
Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well. The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week. It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form. Reaching beyond Japan’s borders Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential…
Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well.
The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week.
It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form.
Reaching beyond Japan’s borders
Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential tourists, posting photos from around Japan, and conducting quizzes. The company boasts cheaper tours than its competitors, and its Facebook presence (now with about 21,000 fans) is a place potential tour participants can comment and have discussions.
As for Japan’s official tourism arm, the JNTO, it has also been pretty active in reaching out on the social network. The organization operates a number of regional pages targeting a variety of countries, including the USA (153,000 fans), Singapore (141,000), and Thailand (92,000).
Of course, the efforts of these companies to promote Japan abroad via Facebook pales in comparison to startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which has racked up more than 11 million Facebook fans with its page about Japanese otaku subculture [2]. Likewise, another young startup under the KDDI Mugen Labo incubator program, Kawaii Museum JPN, is doing something similar, and currently has more than 3 million Facebook fans.
In addition to capitalizing on the power of Facebook, companies and organizations are using the afore-mentioned Line chat app to reach audiences and customers. This past week we featured the apparel brand Lip Service which has been using Line to connect with customers via smartphones, and the end result was a 50% boost in in sales over the previous week. Even the Prime Minister’s Office has a Line account, promising to push updates to citizens who want to stay in the loop using their smartphones [3].
I say ‘perhaps’ because many would say that recently the social network of choise is Line, although as a chat app many others would say it isn’t strictly a social network. ↩
To learn more about Tokyo Otaku Mode, see our feature on the young up-and-coming startup from last month. ↩
See our version of this story in Japanese. We’ve all exchanged name cards while on business or at social events. But a business card can only convey certain information, such as a person’s name, the company they work for, and contact details. Storys.jp tries to tell you even more by sharing experiences in a form of story. The service was launched by ResuPress Inc. last week. Storys.jp helps you easily write up your background and details of your experience by connecting to Facebook and pulling your history. You can then create your story by entering the projects you’ve been involved in and who you’ve been working with, which will give people a more complete idea of who you are. The service also allows you to read some background information about your friends which you might not have known, potentially letting you find more things you may have in common with them. With such an abundance of information on the web these days, and with human relationships already complicated enough, the startup thought that many people might have trouble understanding others at times. Story.jp was launched with the aim of alleviating this problem. They explain: By helping people with different experiences…
We’ve all exchanged name cards while on business or at social events. But a business card can only convey certain information, such as a person’s name, the company they work for, and contact details. Storys.jp tries to tell you even more by sharing experiences in a form of story.
The service was launched by ResuPress Inc. last week. Storys.jp helps you easily write up your background and details of your experience by connecting to Facebook and pulling your history. You can then create your story by entering the projects you’ve been involved in and who you’ve been working with, which will give people a more complete idea of who you are. The service also allows you to read some background information about your friends which you might not have known, potentially letting you find more things you may have in common with them.
With such an abundance of information on the web these days, and with human relationships already complicated enough, the startup thought that many people might have trouble understanding others at times. Story.jp was launched with the aim of alleviating this problem. They explain:
By helping people with different experiences understand and cooperate with each other, we believe that they can create great ideas to solve various problems.
Sharing information about yourself in this way can be a good way to reboot communications with colleagues or friends.
But at the same time, Japanese people typically don’t disclose their backgrounds under their real names in such a way. So I’m curious whether or not Japanese consumers will go for this kind of service.
The startup was founded by ex-JP Morgan employee James Riney and TIT student Koichiro Wada with a 30 million yen (about $320,000) investment from Incubate Fund, Tokyo-based angel investor Anri Samata, and Hong Kong-based angel investor Teddy Lo.
We’ve had another fun week here at SD, doing our best to bring you interesting tech stories going down in Japan. But in case you missed any of it, here’s a wrap up below. Readers on mobile might want to check them out over on Readlists or in ePub format. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here. Featured Niconico Douga: Japanese online video site puts discussion front and center Smapo: Can Japan’s answer to Shopkick fend off new competition? A fine line: Shantell Martin projects freestyle performance art Japan’s Gungho Entertainment is winning at home, but will global gamers get it? Business Japanese reality show will ask contestants to live the Amazon life 5 Japanese studios team up to create online anime platform for overseas markets Messaging app Line partners with Nokia to accelerate global expansion Microsoft rolls out huge teaser ads for Surface tablet in Tokyo Gyao and Gree team up to invest in animation content development Design The future of libraries? In Japan, elevated study pods encourage conversation Japanese startup turns oversized greeting cards into an unlikely digital business Fun apps Ewww! Japanese…
We’ve had another fun week here at SD, doing our best to bring you interesting tech stories going down in Japan. But in case you missed any of it, here’s a wrap up below. Readers on mobile might want to check them out over on Readlists or in ePub format.
If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has officially surpassed 19 million monthly active users in Japan, putting it well ahead of domestic rival Mixi, which has been spinning its wheels in the past year or so at around 15 million. Serkan Toto points out today that this figure comes directly from Facebook Japan’s country growth manager Taro Kodama during Social Media Week here in Tokyo. I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, of course, is that it shows that Facebook is growing well in Japan, a country where some thought early on that it would fail due Japan’s unique distaste for using real names on the internet. Facebook’s growth before the 2011 earthquake was indeed modest, although in the wake of that tragedy many people apparently realized the value of a social network that reflected real world connections, as growth would accelerate after that. This new data point also clarifies recent confusion that Facebook’s user numbers in Japan might be plummeting by the millions, as indicated by Social Bakers, which pulls data from Facebook’s own ad tool. The latter (and by extension the former) probably shouldn’t be trusted for anything more than a general guide [1]. Such headlines spring…
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has officially surpassed 19 million monthly active users in Japan, putting it well ahead of domestic rival Mixi, which has been spinning its wheels in the past year or so at around 15 million. Serkan Toto points out today that this figure comes directly from Facebook Japan’s country growth manager Taro Kodama during Social Media Week here in Tokyo.
I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, of course, is that it shows that Facebook is growing well in Japan, a country where some thought early on that it would fail due Japan’s unique distaste for using real names on the internet. Facebook’s growth before the 2011 earthquake was indeed modest, although in the wake of that tragedy many people apparently realized the value of a social network that reflected real world connections, as growth would accelerate after that.
This new data point also clarifies recentconfusion that Facebook’s user numbers in Japan might be plummeting by the millions, as indicated by Social Bakers, which pulls data from Facebook’s own ad tool. The latter (and by extension the former) probably shouldn’t be trusted for anything more than a general guide [1]. Such headlines spring up for other countries occasionally too, and it’s best not to make too much commotion when such ‘user drops’ occur.
Japan-based Comnico has been helping many companies manage their Facebook pages over the past few years. But like many Japanese tech companies these days, Comnico has its eyes on overseas customers, and given the cultural and language barriers that come with international consulting, the company now has its eyes set on an interesting niche where it hopes to thrive. So what’s the big plan? Comnico has developed a tool that will enable companies to better manage, monitor, and promote Facebook pages on their own. I recently had a chance to catch up with CEO Masayuki Hayashi, who gave me an overview of Comnico’s new marketing suite, which the company hopes to make available to overseas customers this spring. The suite actually includes four products, which can be broken down as follows: Post Manager: This tool lets users make postings to their Facebook pages from within Comnico’s marketing suite. It has a very slick multi-user interface that includes url shortening (custom domain available), plus access to Getty Images in case you’d like to supplement your update with attractive pictures [1]. The post manager also includes a built-in image editor, making use of the Aviary API for quick cropping, addition of text,…
Japan-based Comnico has been helping many companies manage their Facebook pages over the past few years. But like many Japanese tech companies these days, Comnico has its eyes on overseas customers, and given the cultural and language barriers that come with international consulting, the company now has its eyes set on an interesting niche where it hopes to thrive.
So what’s the big plan? Comnico has developed a tool that will enable companies to better manage, monitor, and promote Facebook pages on their own. I recently had a chance to catch up with CEO Masayuki Hayashi, who gave me an overview of Comnico’s new marketing suite, which the company hopes to make available to overseas customers this spring. The suite actually includes four products, which can be broken down as follows:
Post Manager: This tool lets users make postings to their Facebook pages from within Comnico’s marketing suite. It has a very slick multi-user interface that includes url shortening (custom domain available), plus access to Getty Images in case you’d like to supplement your update with attractive pictures [1]. The post manager also includes a built-in image editor, making use of the Aviary API for quick cropping, addition of text, or other edits. Posts can then be scheduled, or saved as drafts if they require approval from others in your company.
Insights: This feature can score your Facebook page, based on a number of criteria such as your reach among both fans and non-fans, and even the reaction you are getting per post. You can even compare your score with those of your competitors, and download and view the reports Excel format if you wish.
Promotions: While it is normally very difficult and expensive to conduct a promotion or campaign on Facebook, this feature lets you create ready-made ones far quicker, letting you offer rewards to participants with relative ease.
Monitoring: It can often be a chore to keep up with user discussion on your Facebook pages. Comnico’s tool helps detect flagged words, and also makes use of human monitoring through a partner company based in Okinawa. This monitoring feature lets you view posts by time, and it also includes multi-lingual support.
Shooting for businesses big and small
And while an offering with the apparent capabilities as this one shouldn’t come cheap, Comnico will be making pricing affortable to small businesses by tiering pricing according to the number of Facebook fans a company has. So for example, a company with less than 500 fans might pay 5000 yen per month (just over $50), while one with 20,000 fans might be 200,000 per month.
Who what kind of customers does Comnico foresee using such a service? Masayuki tells me that it would be a good fit for B2C companies like restaurants, for example. He adds that the advantages of a service like this in Japan are particularly apparent given that alternatives such as Gournavi charge a certain amount to manage fans, and that’s in their own closed system. That contrasts with Facebook, which is still growing in popularity in Japan, where companies can have direct access to their own fans.
Comnico has been operating this suite in Japan and is looking at April for the release of the English version. They don’t have any specified target for how many users they’d like to acquire in their overseas expansion, but they’re looking forward to giving it a try so they can see what happens. After its work in Japan the company has over 100 clients already under its belt — many of them very recognizable — so I imagine that should lend them some credibility in the eyes of potential clients.
It’s certainly good to see another Japanese company venturing beyond the nation’s borders in the interests of expanding business. Let’s stay tuned to see how they do.
Hayashi tells me that images tend to do far better on Facebook in terms of reach and engagement. ↩
When I first heard of Japan-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode it was little more than a Facebook page sharing content about Japanese Otaku subculture. But as far as Facebook pages go, there wasn’t really anything little about it. At that time I think they had about half a million fans, and since then they have gone on to crack through ten million. Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. Million. To put that in perspective, that actually makes them bigger than both Elvis (7M fans) and Jesus (5.1M). In the last year alone, they saw new fans coming on board at an average rate of 600,000 per month. The content on Tokyo Otaku Mode is primarily curated. That doesn’t simply mean curation in the normal sense of tumblr-esque web clippings brought together in recycled stream of web regurgitation. The startup gets in touch with right holders not just to obtain permission to share content, but also to offer its services to help Japanese content creators reach global audiences. According to co-founder Nao Kodaka, many of those rights holders say that the Japanese market is not growing, and now they want to pursue audiences abroad. So far, Tokyo Otaku Mode has established…
When I first heard of Japan-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode it was little more than a Facebook page sharing content about Japanese Otaku subculture. But as far as Facebook pages go, there wasn’t really anything little about it. At that time I think they had about half a million fans, and since then they have gone on to crack through ten million.
Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. Million.
To put that in perspective, that actually makes them bigger than both Elvis (7M fans) and Jesus (5.1M). In the last year alone, they saw new fans coming on board at an average rate of 600,000 per month.
The content on Tokyo Otaku Mode is primarily curated. That doesn’t simply mean curation in the normal sense of tumblr-esque web clippings brought together in recycled stream of web regurgitation. The startup gets in touch with right holders not just to obtain permission to share content, but also to offer its services to help Japanese content creators reach global audiences. According to co-founder Nao Kodaka, many of those rights holders say that the Japanese market is not growing, and now they want to pursue audiences abroad. So far, Tokyo Otaku Mode has established healthy relationships with those groups and individuals, and as a result, can publish high quality content regularly.
The thing that most astounds me about Tokyo Otaku Mode is that the company has managed to build such a community around Japanese culture with only a ten man team. I can’t help but contrast with this the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s own Cool Japan efforts, which is in a way are trying to do the very same thing – but obviously with not as much success.
Community first
Tokyo Otaku Mode began back in 2011. That wasn’t long after the earthquake, and Nao tells me that they wanted to try to do something that could help Japan. Facebook was just catching on in the country at that time [1]. And while there were more than a few fan groups and sites focused on anime, manga, and Japanese culture, Nao says that there weren’t really and Japanese individuals or media reaching out to the world on their own. He succinctly explains:
All we have is our content. Our uniqueness, and our content.
For a young company just starting out, Facebook was certainly a logical place to build up a fan base. It’s free, and there are no server costs.
Nao describes how his team experimented with different methods of Facebook posting, trying different numbers of photos to see if some worked better than others. He points out that fans eventually began tagging themselves in photos, which meant that their friends were also seeing Otaku Mode content too. In the end, it looks to have resulted in a perfect storm of viral content that still hasn’t let up (see fan growth in the chart on the right).
Tokyo Otaku Mode has previously received backing from a number of investors. I recently got in touch with one of them, Craig Mod, who explained to me what it was about Tokyo Otaku Mode that made him want to get behind them as an angel investor [2]. He describers them as a team of “total hustlers” and sharp marketers, bold enough to turn social media on its head:
[T]he fact that they saw an opportunity to leverage Facebook — and Facebook alone — as a platform to launch a publishing-like company was, to me, a first. Instead of spending tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars building complicated software for their company, they spent five minutes and used Facebook Pages as their home base on the internet. Obvious in hindsight but very avant garde even just a year ago.
Mo’ Money, Mo’ mobile
But you can’t make money directly on a Facebook fan page. So Otaku Mode was still faced with the problem that plagues so many in the content industry. How do you convert eyeballs into dollars? The strategy that the company has taken, and one which mentors have advised, is to drive Facebook traffic to its new website at OtakuMode.com, which just recently emerged from its private beta to become fully open to the public.
Nao explains explains that they hope to drive enough traffic to the site so that they could eventually advertise and convert those eyes into dollars.
The company has also dipped its toes in the mobile space as well, publishing its Otaku Camera application for iOS and Android, which turns your photos into manga style art. It isn’t the most original idea in the world, as Manga Camera did pretty much the exact same thing. But Otaku Camera is, in my opinion, far better executed. So far it has over 500,000 downloads, which is not a bad start. I’m told that in the future the application could sell special frames, in collaboration with certain rights holders.
UGC content: Momoiro Reku’s Hatsune Miku cosplay on Tokyo Otaku Mode
The site also now serves as an outlet for content creators as well, with a dedicated UGC section which features some really amazing stuff. There’s also a verification process, by which the best of the best content creators earn a sort of Twitter-style verified badge, provided that they meet a number of stringent criteria. They can upload content on their own, and leverage Otaku Mode’s platform to reach audiences overseas who they may not otherwise be able to reach.
The website also recently added a news section, where articles about the latest happenings in the world of manga and anime are posted. The company also foresees the possibility of branching into e-commerce as a possible monetization method. Nao says, “Picture Esty, but for Otaku.”
This young company will certainly be one to watch in the coming year, just to see if its good fortune can extend beyond its Facebook success. I’m not going to make any predictions, but if I were a betting man, I certainly wouldn’t wager against them.
In fact, Facebook’s role in post-earthquake communication highlighted the social network in the eyes of many in Japan. ↩
Craig previously wrote his impressions of the company for Contents Magazine in a wonderful article entitled “Our New Shrines“. Like almost everything Craig Mod writes or creates, I can’t recommend it enough. ↩
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Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
Junya Mori
