THE BRIDGE

tag nana

Boasting over 2.5M users worldwide, Japan’s social music app Nana unveils premium service

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Nana Music, the Japanese startup offering the freemium social music collaboration app Nana, announced last week that they have begun offering the paid subscription service “Nana premium” for iOS users. For 580 yen a month (about $5.80 US) users will have access to added functions such as searching based on how much ‘applause’ (similar to ‘likes’ on Facebook) a song has, new effects, and the ability to pin favorite sounds at the top of their “My Page” feed. The company plans to offer additional new features to paying subscribers in the future. Nana is a social network that allows users to combine accompaniment tracks, voice tracks, etc. to form entirely new music content. See also: Japan’s social music app Nana releases Android version This Japanese startup changes how people relate to music Nana app gets anime theme songs, available globally without location restriction As of August this year, according to CEO Akinori Fumihara, since the launch in November of 2012 31 million songs have been posted, with over 1.1 billion views, and registered users totaling more than 2.5 million. If they continue to grow at this rate, by January of next year it…

nana-akinori-fumihara
Nana Music CEO Akinori Fumihara

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Nana Music, the Japanese startup offering the freemium social music collaboration app Nana, announced last week that they have begun offering the paid subscription service “Nana premium” for iOS users. For 580 yen a month (about $5.80 US) users will have access to added functions such as searching based on how much ‘applause’ (similar to ‘likes’ on Facebook) a song has, new effects, and the ability to pin favorite sounds at the top of their “My Page” feed. The company plans to offer additional new features to paying subscribers in the future.

Nana is a social network that allows users to combine accompaniment tracks, voice tracks, etc. to form entirely new music content.

See also:

As of August this year, according to CEO Akinori Fumihara, since the launch in November of 2012 31 million songs have been posted, with over 1.1 billion views, and registered users totaling more than 2.5 million. If they continue to grow at this rate, by January of next year it is likely the number of users will reach 3 million.

nana-user-growth
Nana’s user growth
Image credit: Nana Music

He said:

Our users sing and then post it; then that gets shared and brings in followers, this cycle is what’s powering our growth. But there is a hurdle we’re really trying to overcome. As a result of not getting any information at registration, without really understanding (how the app works), some users are suddenly being cast out of Nana’s community and end up withdrawing entirely.

The company understands their user base is young, that the contents tends to be centered around Vocaloid and anime songs, and that people who feel intimidated do not assimilate, so they have come up with features such as categorizing groups, and the ability to personalize based on individual information.

nana-premium-functions
Some of Nana Premium’s additional functions
Image credit: Nana Music

So, how far will they grow from here?

Fumihara noted that no matter how hard you try 30 million users within Japan is the upper limit, so overseas expansion becomes necessary.

Currently around 70% of our users are domestic, but we’d like to reverse that. Now, we have a lot of users in Thailand and North America, and soon this momentum should lead to nearly 40% of Spanish speaking countries (using Nana). It’s the result of using APO (app search optimization) and focusing on Android.

In Japan, users who play instruments have begun collaborating on songs, adding in the voices of people who want to sing, leading to an increase in contents. The company believes that if they try a similar approach, “because singing is non-verbal” a direct deployment in foreign countries is possible.

In regards to charging for services, initially they considered a tipping model, but in the midst of a variety of advice, they chose the current model.

He added:

There was a conflict over monetization. On the business side, we are doing advertising campaigns aimed at corporations, and while there are a variety of directions we could take, I had the thought that I couldn’t support a community along with these zealous people. In order to make an even more convenient, enjoyable world for music lovers I feel like maybe the best way is to do it together with them.

I came away with the impression that, having looked after the Nnana community for a number of years now, this business model suits him.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s social music app Nana releases Android version

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Nana Music, the Japanese startup behind social music app Nana, launched an Android version for the service on Wednesday. This has been anticipated since the company launched its iOS version in August of 2012. CEO Fumihara equates the service with the invention of a musical instrument enabling users to produce new music. Nana Music founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara emphasizes the perspective of creating content with users. With the launch of the Android app at this time, they aim to acquire over 1 million users by this year-end and create the country’s largest online music community. See also: Nana app gets anime theme songs, available globally without location restriction The Nana app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world. What’s noteworthy about Nana is their users with a lot of energy and of action. They have…

nana-music_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Nana Music, the Japanese startup behind social music app Nana, launched an Android version for the service on Wednesday. This has been anticipated since the company launched its iOS version in August of 2012.

CEO Fumihara equates the service with the invention of a musical instrument enabling users to produce new music.

Nana Music founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara emphasizes the perspective of creating content with users. With the launch of the Android app at this time, they aim to acquire over 1 million users by this year-end and create the country’s largest online music community.

See also:

The Nana app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world.

What’s noteworthy about Nana is their users with a lot of energy and of action. They have developed creative plans by themselves and involved other users. They invented new ways to play the app such as Renga (literally meaning ‘linked singing’) where every user sings a phrase in a song and then passes it on to the next user, and they also sing while mimicking popular anime characters.

Nana Music has given users an offline music experience as well. They recently held a user event celebrating their second anniversary in August that was attended by more than 230 teenage fans of the app. CEO Fumihara says that the service is comparable to the invention of a music instrument that give users a new musical experience. So it will be interesting to see how they will proceed from here.

This Japanese startup changes how people relate to music

SHARE:

Akinori Fumihara, Founder/CEO See the original article in Japanese On January 13th, Japanese social music platform, Nana, held a collaborative music festival called Nana fes vol.1 featuring Joysound at Minami Aoyama in Tokyo. On that day around 120 users, mostly in their teens or twenties, got together for the event. It was broadcasted online by Twitcasting, and in total 10,000 users tuned in live during 4.5 hour event. For those not familiar with the service, Nana lets its users share and mix their audio with other users on its platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. More than 5000 songs are posted on Nana everyday, with the average time for a user to stay on the site amount to 230 minutes per month. The monthly number of plays has surpassed 3.5 million, which shows how actively people are using the app. We had a chance to hear from Akinori Fumihara, Nana’s founder and CEO, about this event idea: Since Nana’s launch, we have regularly organized offline meetups for our users. But as a music service provider, I have been wanting to hold a live music event for a long time. I set the concept as a culture…

nana代表の文原明臣氏

Akinori Fumihara, Founder/CEO

See the original article in Japanese

On January 13th, Japanese social music platform, Nana, held a collaborative music festival called Nana fes vol.1 featuring Joysound at Minami Aoyama in Tokyo. On that day around 120 users, mostly in their teens or twenties, got together for the event. It was broadcasted online by Twitcasting, and in total 10,000 users tuned in live during 4.5 hour event.

For those not familiar with the service, Nana lets its users share and mix their audio with other users on its platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. More than 5000 songs are posted on Nana everyday, with the average time for a user to stay on the site amount to 230 minutes per month. The monthly number of plays has surpassed 3.5 million, which shows how actively people are using the app.

nana fes

We had a chance to hear from Akinori Fumihara, Nana’s founder and CEO, about this event idea:

Since Nana’s launch, we have regularly organized offline meetups for our users. But as a music service provider, I have been wanting to hold a live music event for a long time. I set the concept as a culture festival for Nana users by Nana users.

I always wanted to help create “Sunday artists”, those who work during the week and then work on the music projects on weekends. The user experience at a live concert is different from singing on the app. And I always wanted to offer that kind of different opportunity, so this festival was my first attempt to do this.

Build confidence, relationships

One user in particular was especially fascinated with Nana, gradually gaining confidence in his singing by joining offline meetups. That led him to even sing at his company’s event, and now he is even thinking about doing street performances.

Fumihara wants to continue to be this kind of catalyst for singers and musicians:

Many people have musical talent, but I think many of them don’t think highly of their own skill. But if there is a place to show their works, they can get feedback about it. And by allowing users to post their work easily on Nana, it creates opportunities for real talent to be recognized.

Nana users are quite loyal to the service, many of them calling themselves ‘Nana-min’ (min means people in Japanese), or describing the collaborative process as ‘Nanaru’. Some Twitter users even list their Nana account link on their profiles, many of them create Twitter accounts just because of their activity on Nana. The two services are very complementary, in fact.

Fumihara thinks there are two main reasons for the site’s popularity, the first being that many users are teenagers, and often they don’t have friends with whom they can discuss their favorite music.

When I was a teenager, I didn’t have anyone close to talk about my favorite music with. Finding people to have a music session with was even harder. Nana users are very happy about collaborating with others, and once they collaborate, they get to know more about each other. They make a very strong bond over Nana.

I want users to see music as an activity that’s very easy to start. It should be easier to get involved with music without taking it too seriously.

Nana is currently available only for iOS, and an Android app is now under construction. Nana plans to continue holding music festivals too.

Combining online and offline, Nana wants to create a future where people can “sing with the world”.

nana

Japan’s ‘Social Party Robot Band’ has a killer guitarist, will melt your face off!

SHARE:

See our report on this story in Japanese There appears to be no end to the things that Japan can do with robots. While many robots are for practical purposes on assembly lines, there are also some really fun robots out there too. Take for example, Z-Machines, the first ‘social party robot band’, which is scheduled to make its debut on June 24th at the Liquid Room in Ebisu, Tokyo. As you can see in their demo video above, the robot guitarist looks especially bad-ass, capable of playing at a speed of up to 1184 bpm. There’s there are no shortage of picks or nimble fingers in this mechanized setup, although I’m curious to see what the entire band looks like up close. The band’s profile shows a trio, including a keyboard robot and a drum robot too. I’m not sure if they will look much like the promotional graphics (see below), but I really hope so! So what kind of music will the band play? That’s where the ‘social’ aspect comes into play. Leading up to its June 24th debut, Z-Machines will be accepting song submissions from aspiring musicians (in wav or midi formats) on PC or by using…

See our report on this story in Japanese

There appears to be no end to the things that Japan can do with robots. While many robots are for practical purposes on assembly lines, there are also some really fun robots out there too. Take for example, Z-Machines, the first ‘social party robot band’, which is scheduled to make its debut on June 24th at the Liquid Room in Ebisu, Tokyo.

As you can see in their demo video above, the robot guitarist looks especially bad-ass, capable of playing at a speed of up to 1184 bpm. There’s there are no shortage of picks or nimble fingers in this mechanized setup, although I’m curious to see what the entire band looks like up close. The band’s profile shows a trio, including a keyboard robot and a drum robot too. I’m not sure if they will look much like the promotional graphics (see below), but I really hope so!

So what kind of music will the band play? That’s where the ‘social’ aspect comes into play. Leading up to its June 24th debut, Z-Machines will be accepting song submissions from aspiring musicians (in wav or midi formats) on PC or by using the Nana smartphone app [1]. The lucky winner will have their song played by Z-Machines during its debut.

The concept comes as part of a promotion for Zima, under the supervision of Tokyo University professor Yoichi Kawaguchi. Judging by his previous work, this looks like it will be quite a show!

z-machines-robot-band


  1. Readers may recall that we featured Nana – an app that lets musicians collaborate on projects together using their smartphones – just a few days ago.  ↩

Nana app gets anime theme songs, available globally without location restriction

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese music collaboration app Nana has partnered with Joysound, one of the country’s biggest karaoke service providers, to provide anime theme songs for karaoke in its app. What’s most interesting here is that despite the fact that most music-related services have geographically limited availability due to copyright, Nana’s anime theme songs will be available to users the world over. The startup has an agreement with Joysound for the master license for these anime theme songs, with a blanket purchase agreement in place JASRAC, Japan’s copyright control authority. For readers not yet familiar with Nana, the app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world. Nana launched its beta version last August, and its global version followed last November. According to the startup’s co-founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara, the app currently has about 25,000 users, and 70% of them…

See the original story in Japanese.

nana-musicJapanese music collaboration app Nana has partnered with Joysound, one of the country’s biggest karaoke service providers, to provide anime theme songs for karaoke in its app.

What’s most interesting here is that despite the fact that most music-related services have geographically limited availability due to copyright, Nana’s anime theme songs will be available to users the world over. The startup has an agreement with Joysound for the master license for these anime theme songs, with a blanket purchase agreement in place JASRAC, Japan’s copyright control authority.

For readers not yet familiar with Nana, the app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world. Nana launched its beta version last August, and its global version followed last November.

According to the startup’s co-founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara, the app currently has about 25,000 users, and 70% of them are teenage girls. More than 120,000 songs have been exchanged using the platform, and about 1,200 songs are being posted every day.

Japan’s karaoke giant Joysound provides anime theme songs to karaoke bars and nightclubs all across the country. They are also known for providing many user-created or Vocaloid songs, typically posted by amateur singers on Japan’s video sharing site Nico Nico Douga.

Nico Nico Douga has many videos tagged as ‘I’ve sung this song,’ a good indication that there’s actually a culture growing around users who record themselves singing popular songs on the platform. As the Nana app makes it easier for you to record yourself and post to the internet, this new Joysound partnership may encourage Nana users to sing and share even more. Fumihara notes:

The anime theme song genre is a suitable one that people will enjoy singing together. I hope the partnership will generate even more song-based communication among people.

If you’d like to try the Nana app for yourself, you can get it for iOS over on the App Store.