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Japan’s Pocket Concierge fills cancelled restaurant reservations with eager customers

Junya Mori 2013.03.06

Read this story in Japanese. When you go for a night out on the town, how do you find the best restaurant? In Japan, most people rely on internet resources such as Tabelog, Gournavi, Naver Matome, or even blog posts. But with Japan’s high internet penetration, many people in your area are probably doing the same thing. As a result, it can be even the harder to reserve a spot in the restaurant you want. Pocket Concierge was recently launched with the aim at solving this kind of problem, allowing you to book even popular restaurants that might be wait-listed for several months. How does it work? You bookmark the restaurant of your choice by clicking the ‘wish-to-go’ button on the Pocket Concierge website. When the restaurant finds any unexpected vacancy in their reservation list, they will e-mail you an invite through the site. You will be requested to enter what day and how many people are in your party. Pocket Concierge will then e-mail you confirmation of the booking after finalizing with the restaurant. While popular restaurants are tough to reserve, when they experience sudden cancellations they could be wasting food – and it’s useful for them to be…

Read this story in Japanese.

When you go for a night out on the town, how do you find the best restaurant? In Japan, most people rely on internet resources such as Tabelog, Gournavi, Naver Matome, or even blog posts. But with Japan’s high internet penetration, many people in your area are probably doing the same thing. As a result, it can be even the harder to reserve a spot in the restaurant you want.

Pocket Concierge was recently launched with the aim at solving this kind of problem, allowing you to book even popular restaurants that might be wait-listed for several months.

How does it work? You bookmark the restaurant of your choice by clicking the ‘wish-to-go’ button on the Pocket Concierge website. When the restaurant finds any unexpected vacancy in their reservation list, they will e-mail you an invite through the site. You will be requested to enter what day and how many people are in your party. Pocket Concierge will then e-mail you confirmation of the booking after finalizing with the restaurant.

While popular restaurants are tough to reserve, when they experience sudden cancellations they could be wasting food – and it’s useful for them to be able to invite other customers instead. Interestingly, the service is not PC dependent as it is also available to use via fax.

Pocket Concierge was founded by Kei Tokado who was has experience in the restaurant business, including time as a restaurant chef. His unique background and insight made it possible to come up with such an idea, having seen the need for such a service first hand.

Early insights

Pocket Concierge has been operating in closed beta since the beginning of this year. And so far they have intriguing insights, finding that sales professionals in their 30s often dined with business partners, and male business owners in their 40s were also very responsive. Kei Tokado explains:

We previously intended to provide users with an alternative way to book ‘hard-to-reserve’ restaurants. But from the closed beta program, we found that customers using our service were very satisfied because participating restaurants provided them with extra rewards when the customers dined. In comparison to existing restaurant-related online services, we believe we provide more value, even offline.

We heard from many restaurants that it’s possible to learn in advance the sort of occasion a customer might have, or if they have certain ingredients they dislike or might be allergic to. This information makes it possible to provide a service which fits the customer very well.

For users, it’s free to make a reservation more than three days in advance of your visit, but otherwise you will be charged. The service started in Tokyo but expects to expand to other major Japanese cities including Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Fukuoka.

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Muji’s minimalist wall-mounted speaker plays music straight from your mobile

Rick Martin 2013.03.05

I’m a big fan of Japanese retailer Muji (TYO:7453) which has a wide range of affordable products which don’t really look terribly cheap. One such product is its newly released wall-mounted bluetooth speaker, which allows you to play music straight from your smartphone. The device features a fun retro on/off switch, a simple pull string in the style of old-school lamps. And its clean white design is typical Muji minimalist style, and can be mounted on your wall via a handy bracket on the back. In addition to receiving and playing music from your smartphone (within a range of 10 meters), you can also use the FM tuner if you prefer some radio. There are volume buttons on the speaker itself, but there’s also a remote control which you can use too. The speaker also includes an AC adaptor. If you’d like to check it out, drop in on a Muji store near you, although for the time being I suspect it’s not on sale outside Japan. It’s also available on the Muji website for 8,900 yen (or about $95). (Yahoo Japan)

I’m a big fan of Japanese retailer Muji (TYO:7453) which has a wide range of affordable products which don’t really look terribly cheap. One such product is its newly released wall-mounted bluetooth speaker, which allows you to play music straight from your smartphone.

The device features a fun retro on/off switch, a simple pull string in the style of old-school lamps. And its clean white design is typical Muji minimalist style, and can be mounted on your wall via a handy bracket on the back.

In addition to receiving and playing music from your smartphone (within a range of 10 meters), you can also use the FM tuner if you prefer some radio. There are volume buttons on the speaker itself, but there’s also a remote control which you can use too. The speaker also includes an AC adaptor.

If you’d like to check it out, drop in on a Muji store near you, although for the time being I suspect it’s not on sale outside Japan. It’s also available on the Muji website for 8,900 yen (or about $95). (Yahoo Japan)

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Japan tech this week: Startups pitching, Gungho winning, Facebook liked

Rick Martin 2013.03.03

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.

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It’s official: Japan likes Facebook!

Rick Martin 2013.02.26

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 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 up for other countries occasionally too, and it’s best not to make too much commotion when such ‘user drops’ occur.

Photo: via Facebook Marketing Japan (blurred for ironic anonymity)

As far as general guides go, I think it’s a pretty good one. ↩

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Japan tech this week: Angry Birds are patient, fashion sites ambitious, Docomo slow but steady

Rick Martin 2013.02.24

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 Why Angry Birds prefer not to be early birds in Japan Japan’s Designclue wants to build Asia’s largest logo crowdsourcing market Meet 4 of Japan’s hottest online fashion malls Trouble managing your Facebook page? Help is on the way this spring, from Japan Business GREE and Yahoo Japan set up joint venture for mobile social game development Google Street View broadens its horizons, crashes a party in Japan Despite slower speeds, NTT Docomo quick to surpass 10 million LTE subscribers Japan’s mobile wars intensify: Docomo moves up ultra-high speed data launch to 2015 Google Hangouts recruits Asian pop stars for new ‘A-Pop’ initiative, Design Japanese startups find creativity at Crowdworks Meet the Japanese company that’s making a sign language keyboard Fun Apps Tower defense game ‘Battle Cats’…

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.

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Ninja Camera: Japan’s top iPhone photo app is perfect for perverts

SCORE 1,301

Rick Martin 2013.02.22

Ninja Camera is a very sneaky iPhone app from Japan which is intended to let the users take photos without anyone noticing. It was released this week, and has been ranked number one in the photo and video category since then [1], so it’s certainly popular with at least a few people. As you can see in our demo video above, Ninja Camera has three stealthy shooting modes: Silent camera mode: The normal viewfinder is displayed, but when you take a photo, there isn’t any shutter sound. Note that in Japan, camera phones are required to make this noise, although many apps allow users to get around this. Hidden camera mode: This is perhaps the most nefarious feature, as your camera’s screen shows fully functioning web browser, with a tiny camera viewfinder in the bottom corner. So even if someone is watching over your shoulder, it appears as though you are innocently browsing the web – when you are actually snapping photos [2]. Dark camera mode: This shooting mode blacks out the entire screen, making it appear as though your phone is off. But there are faintly visible shutter buttons on the bottom, letting you continue to snap off pictures….

Ninja Camera is a very sneaky iPhone app from Japan which is intended to let the users take photos without anyone noticing. It was released this week, and has been ranked number one in the photo and video category since then [1], so it’s certainly popular with at least a few people.

As you can see in our demo video above, Ninja Camera has three stealthy shooting modes:

Silent camera mode: The normal viewfinder is displayed, but when you take a photo, there isn’t any shutter sound. Note that in Japan, camera phones are required to make this noise, although many apps allow users to get around this.
Hidden camera mode: This is perhaps the most nefarious feature, as your camera’s screen shows fully functioning web browser, with a tiny camera viewfinder in the bottom corner. So even if someone is watching over your shoulder, it appears as though you are innocently browsing the web – when you are actually snapping photos [2].
Dark camera mode: This shooting mode blacks out the entire screen, making it appear as though your phone is off. But there are faintly visible shutter buttons on the bottom, letting you continue to snap off pictures.

Back in 2011 when such photo applications started to become more of a problem, an Apple Japan representative was cited by the Yomiuri Shimbun as saying that “There’s no problem as long as the developer’s stated purpose for the app doesn’t go against social ethics.”

In Ninja Camera’s app description, the developer of Ninja camera lists three example purposes for its stealthy app: shooting a sleeping baby, taking pictures of pets sensitive to sound, and taking photos in a quiet place. Ultimately, I think the responsibility does lie with the user. But in my view, an app like Ninja Camera definitely looks like it was intentionally designed for snapping covert pictures of unsuspecting ladies. If you look at one of the app’s promo photo (below and to the right) it shows a photo taken of a lady from behind — so the intent isn’t really even obscured here — even though it’s not explicitly stated.

ninja-camera-2

ninja-camera-1

I write this post on a Friday, so it has been released for four days now. ↩
A little digging shows that some other applications have this function, including the similarly named Private Ninja Cam. ↩

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Japan’s mobile wars intensify: Docomo moves up ultra-high speed data launch to 2015

Masaru Ikeda 2013.02.20

We noted yesterday that even though NTT Docomo (TSE:9437) had reached 10 million LTE subscribers, it still lags behind its competitors in speed. And today – as if on cue – the telco has reportedly moved up the scheduled launch of its ultra high-speed mobile data service to 2015, according to the Asahi Shimbun. This new service will adhere to the LTE Advanced standard, and it was expected to launch in 2016. But with intensifying competition against the other major Japanese telecoms, KDDI and Softbank Mobile, it appears as though the Docomo has decided to kick it up a notch. The new mobile data standard will enable a maximum speed of 1Gbps, which is five times faster than the current LTE service in Japan. That will allow subscribers to make the most of their smartphone subscription, able to consume a variety of rich media content on mobile, such as BeeTV [1] , d-Market Video Store (inaccessible outside Japan), Hulu, and interpretation services. In a recent report by UK consultation company Open Signal, Japan was (disgracefully) ranked the worst in the mobile data speeds out of the nine countries in the study. BeeTV is an IP-based TV service for Docomo’s subcscribers, in partnership with music…

We noted yesterday that even though NTT Docomo (TSE:9437) had reached 10 million LTE subscribers, it still lags behind its competitors in speed. And today – as if on cue – the telco has reportedly moved up the scheduled launch of its ultra high-speed mobile data service to 2015, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

This new service will adhere to the LTE Advanced standard, and it was expected to launch in 2016. But with intensifying competition against the other major Japanese telecoms, KDDI and Softbank Mobile, it appears as though the Docomo has decided to kick it up a notch.

The new mobile data standard will enable a maximum speed of 1Gbps, which is five times faster than the current LTE service in Japan. That will allow subscribers to make the most of their smartphone subscription, able to consume a variety of rich media content on mobile, such as BeeTV [1] , d-Market Video Store (inaccessible outside Japan), Hulu, and interpretation services.

In a recent report by UK consultation company Open Signal, Japan was (disgracefully) ranked the worst in the mobile data speeds out of the nine countries in the study.

Source: Open Signal, Inc. http://opensignal.com/reports/state-of-lte/ — Source: Open Signal

BeeTV is an IP-based TV service for Docomo’s subcscribers, in partnership with music company Avex, actor/entertainer agency HoriPro, and Fuji Television. ↩

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Japanese startups find creativity at Crowdworks

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.18

Crowdworks is the Japanese equivalent of design crowdsourcing sites like Logo Tournament or 99designs. It launched in March of 2012 and its total number of registered creators and engineers surpassed 7,000 in October of the same year. To date, more than 3,600 small businesses have used the site. Among the small businesses that leverage crowdsourcing, tech startups are apparently very active in using the service to create new logos and app icons. Here are some of the tech companies that have used Crowdworks for creative inspiration and what those winning designs look like. miil miil is basically a sort of Instagram for foodies. You can like and comment on each other’s food photos, and find out nearby restaurants and photos shared there. On Crowdworks, the startup asked for a new icon they could use for the app store, and paid 30,000 yen (about $320) to get the job done. 36 designs were submitted in total. Gunosy By looking at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, Gunosy curates news articles best suited for each user. The news can be viewed on the Gunosy website, received by email, or simply read in their app. The service launched in October of 2011 and gained…

Crowdworks is the Japanese equivalent of design crowdsourcing sites like Logo Tournament or 99designs. It launched in March of 2012 and its total number of registered creators and engineers surpassed 7,000 in October of the same year. To date, more than 3,600 small businesses have used the site.

Among the small businesses that leverage crowdsourcing, tech startups are apparently very active in using the service to create new logos and app icons. Here are some of the tech companies that have used Crowdworks for creative inspiration and what those winning designs look like.

miil

miil is basically a sort of Instagram for foodies. You can like and comment on each other’s food photos, and find out nearby restaurants and photos shared there.

On Crowdworks, the startup asked for a new icon they could use for the app store, and paid 30,000 yen (about $320) to get the job done. 36 designs were submitted in total.

Gunosy

By looking at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, Gunosy curates news articles best suited for each user. The news can be viewed on the Gunosy website, received by email, or simply read in their app. The service launched in October of 2011 and gained over 76,000 users as of this month.

Gunosy was looking for a cover image for their Facebook page and found one they liked from the 19 designs submitted. Considering the tech savvy user demographic, the very modern design really suits the brand.

Takumen

Takumen is an e-commerce service for well-known ramen spots all over Japan.

Takumen offered creators 20,000 yen (about $213) for a logo for a new ramen shop called Sakuta-ya. 34 different designs were submitted, and a very manly black and red logo won the competition.

Samurai International

The startup was seeking a logo for a new music application which has racked up over 2 million downloads to date. The app auto-plays selected music from YouTube, so it was essential that the logo reflects that connection with YouTube.

From the 18 submitted designs, the startup chose a very simple logo with a musical note.

Poica

Poica is a smartphone app that carries all of your point cards in one handy place. Readers may recall our video review of the app earlier this month.

The startup used Crowdworks to create introductory business cards to give out to people they meet. The 40,000 yen prize (about $426) was won with a simple white and green design, out of 15 designs.

Crowdworks recently partnered with Yahoo! Crowdsourcing this past January, teaming up to make the service the largest crowdsourcing site in Japan. Other small businesses are leveraging the site as well, including a local beer manufacturer in Atsugi. You can see some pretty labels for the new spring beer here.

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Japanese manga artist crowdfunds digital exhibition overseas

The Bridge 2013.02.12

This is part of our Crowdfunding in Japan series (RSS). Services like KickStarter have become a global phenomenon with the power to let creative individuals take their ideas to new heights. It’s happening here in Japan too, most notably on Campfire, the country’s answer to Kickstarter. Yuta Kayashima has been working as an illustrator while trying to realize his dream of becoming a manga artist. Ever since he was a student, he has been experimenting with the blending of manga and digital technology. His works Manga 2.0 (made with Adobe Flash) and Hack to the Brain were honored by the judicial committee for the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs. He has also distributed a special vertically written comic called Saiyu Shojo (A Young Girl’s Westward Trip) on the booklog site Puboo, a service where anyone can make and sell ebooks. From January through March 2013, Mr. Kayashima will participate in a modern art exhibition in Mexico featuring a Ukiyo-e theme. This Ukiyoe x Digital Comic project is a effort that combines traditional Japanese drawings and the latest media technology. He is planning to make an interactive comic, which will allow the audience to perform operations on the exhibit using a…

This is part of our Crowdfunding in Japan series (RSS). Services like KickStarter have become a global phenomenon with the power to let creative individuals take their ideas to new heights. It’s happening here in Japan too, most notably on Campfire, the country’s answer to Kickstarter.

Yuta Kayashima has been working as an illustrator while trying to realize his dream of becoming a manga artist. Ever since he was a student, he has been experimenting with the blending of manga and digital technology. His works Manga 2.0 (made with Adobe Flash) and Hack to the Brain were honored by the judicial committee for the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs. He has also distributed a special vertically written comic called Saiyu Shojo (A Young Girl’s Westward Trip) on the booklog site Puboo, a service where anyone can make and sell ebooks.

From January through March 2013, Mr. Kayashima will participate in a modern art exhibition in Mexico featuring a Ukiyo-e theme. This Ukiyoe x Digital Comic project is a effort that combines traditional Japanese drawings and the latest media technology. He is planning to make an interactive comic, which will allow the audience to perform operations on the exhibit using a mouse, and the scene will be displayed using a projector. The exhibit is described as follows:

Three beautiful sisters from the Ukiyo-e world travel through a time warp to the modern era. To their misfortune, in the present-day world their looks are no longer considered to be quite so attractive, but that does not curb their desire to be considered beautiful. They discover that many modern day anime characters are considered beautiful. As such, the jealous three sisters search for modern beauty, stealing various parts from other characters and competing against each other to enhance their own images.

It sounds like a pretty fascinating story, and if Kayashima’s past work is any indication (see video below), the exhibit should be equally impressive. For all our Mexican readers (we know there’s at least a few of you), do check out the exhibition if you get a chance.

The project recently appeared as a crowdfunding project on Campfire, and happily it turned out to be a success story, as the target of ¥250,000 (over $2,700) was successfully reached on Nov 3, 2012.

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Japanese card battle game ‘Dark Summoner’ tops 5 million downloads worldwide

Rick Martin 2013.02.12

Dark Summoner, a card battle game from Japanese game developer A-Team (TYO:3662), has broken through the 5 million worldwide downloads milestone. The iOS game has been around for about a year, and the Android version launched this past summer. According to social games expert Serkan Toto, the game has seen some impressive profitability as well. The English version of the title has managed to stay in the 100 top grossing app ranks for iOS, and on Google Play both the English and Japanese versions have been in the top 10 or 15 since their release. A commercial featuring AKB48’s Haruna Kojima is currently in heavy rotation [1] on television in Japan promoting an in-game campaign that runs until February 15th allowing you to get special monster cards. You can check out the commercial below. They also have a ‘making of’ video online, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’ve only just begun playing this game, but if you enjoy the card battle genre you’ll probably like this one too. It takes a little while to get into, but the process of collecting rare monster cards and sacrificing other cards to improve them is pretty addicting. I hope to give…

dark-summoner 2 — AKB48’s Haruna Kojima, for A-Team’s Dark Summoner

Dark Summoner, a card battle game from Japanese game developer A-Team (TYO:3662), has broken through the 5 million worldwide downloads milestone. The iOS game has been around for about a year, and the Android version launched this past summer.

According to social games expert Serkan Toto, the game has seen some impressive profitability as well. The English version of the title has managed to stay in the 100 top grossing app ranks for iOS, and on Google Play both the English and Japanese versions have been in the top 10 or 15 since their release.

A commercial featuring AKB48’s Haruna Kojima is currently in heavy rotation [1] on television in Japan promoting an in-game campaign that runs until February 15th allowing you to get special monster cards. You can check out the commercial below. They also have a ‘making of’ video online, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I’ve only just begun playing this game, but if you enjoy the card battle genre you’ll probably like this one too. It takes a little while to get into, but the process of collecting rare monster cards and sacrificing other cards to improve them is pretty addicting. I hope to give it a short video review once I spend a little more time with it. In the meantime, if you have any tips or advice for the game, feel free to share it in the comments.

See what I did there? ↩

Japan