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Google Street View broadens its horizons, crashes a party in Japan

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大きな地図で見る Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) today has announced that it has expanded its Street View coverage in Japan to a number of new areas, including Kochi and Tokushima prefectures [1]. What’s especially cool about this latest addition to Street View is that in Tokushima city, Google cooperated with a local tourist organization so that it could shoot the Awa dance festival, an annual event where musicians and dancers parade through the streets wearing traditional costumes. As you can see in Google’s video below, the company rolled its famous Street View trike through the procession, capturing the spectacle all the way. As fun as the video is, take a moment to explore the Street View map as well, if you want to feel like you’re in the middle of the action. On a more serious note, Google’s Street View has served an important archival purpose in Japan in the past as well, capturing the state of the areas affected by the tragic 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Overall, it’s good to see the company getting involved in all these ways to share and preserve the country’s culture and history. The full list can be found in Google’s blog post here (Japanese).  ↩


大きな地図で見る

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) today has announced that it has expanded its Street View coverage in Japan to a number of new areas, including Kochi and Tokushima prefectures [1].

What’s especially cool about this latest addition to Street View is that in Tokushima city, Google cooperated with a local tourist organization so that it could shoot the Awa dance festival, an annual event where musicians and dancers parade through the streets wearing traditional costumes.

As you can see in Google’s video below, the company rolled its famous Street View trike through the procession, capturing the spectacle all the way. As fun as the video is, take a moment to explore the Street View map as well, if you want to feel like you’re in the middle of the action.

On a more serious note, Google’s Street View has served an important archival purpose in Japan in the past as well, capturing the state of the areas affected by the tragic 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Overall, it’s good to see the company getting involved in all these ways to share and preserve the country’s culture and history.


  1. The full list can be found in Google’s blog post here (Japanese).  ↩

Google Hangouts recruits Asian pop stars for new ‘A-Pop’ initiative

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Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market. The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout. On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout. Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple…

J-pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
J-pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market.

The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout.

On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout.

Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple in Shiba Park in front of the brightly lit Tokyo Tower. The spectacle was organized by mobile phone carrier au KDDI (TYO:9433) which turned the local area into a digital interactive theme park. 1,500 participants were able to manipulate taxis, water fountains, and street lights by using their smartphone as a remote control.

Google+ had 25 million users in Japan as of July 2011. The company’s celebrity-recruitment efforts first started in 2012, so the effect of such projects on growing its user base has yet to be fully realized. Stay tuned!


  1. Her name is nearly impossible to pronounce, even for Japanese people. So don’t feel bad if you stumble!  ↩

Japan tech this week: Bahamut, business cards, and YouTube’s Valentine for Tokyo

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In our second week live we enjoyed bringing you a wide range of stories. In case you missed any of them, here they are below — or if you’re on mobile, you may prefer to check them out on Readlists or in ePub format if that’s your thing. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here. We’re still in our infancy here, but we’d love your feedback — so drop us a line anytime mail. Featured ¶ Rage of Bahamut and Japan’s quest for global gamers A tough-luck Japanese auto-parts factory rebounds with an inspiring new side business Business ¶ Japanese developer Nijibox continues Southeast Asia push, launches ‘Legend of Fantasia’ on Kotagames YouTube opens its third global space for video creators in Tokyo Tokyo Otaku Mode raises additional funds from three VC firms Design ¶ Japanese designer ditches chopsticks for amazing musical fork Japanese manga artist crowdfunds digital exhibition overseas Fun Apps ¶ Japanese app ‘Poica’ wants to carry all your point cards (Video) A-Team’s ‘Dark Summoner’ tops 5 million downloads worldwide Yahoo Japan’s Face Stealer app transforms you into Obama, or anyone else you’d…

Squash FIlms enjoying the makeup room in YouTube Space Tokyo
Squash FIlms enjoying the makeup room in the new YouTube Space Tokyo

In our second week live we enjoyed bringing you a wide range of stories. In case you missed any of them, here they are below — or if you’re on mobile, you may prefer to check them out on Readlists or in ePub format if that’s your thing.

If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here.

We’re still in our infancy here, but we’d love your feedback — so drop us a line anytime mail.

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YouTube opens its third global space for video creators in Tokyo

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Read our Japanese report on this event Located a few floors below Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) high-rise Tokyo office, the internet giant today announced a brand new space dedicated to video creators in Japan and the Asia Pacific region. It’s new YouTube Space in Tokyo is the third of its kind for the company in the world, having previously opened a space in London back in July, as well as one in Los Angeles this past November. The multi-purpose area is about 700 square meters in total, and it includes a wide range of areas that would make any YouTube giddy. Among the rooms in the space will be a recording studio, an editing suite, a make-up room, a control room for Ustreaming, as well as a green screen. It’s a huge opportunity for local content creators in Tokyo, especially those who would not normally have have access to such high quality video production facilities. For members of YouTube’s partner program, the space will be free to use, and in addition to the great facilities they will also have an opportunity to work with other creators, hopefully leading to lots of cross-pollination of talent and interesting collaboration opportunities. Tom Pickett, the vice…

youtube

Read our Japanese report on this event

Located a few floors below Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) high-rise Tokyo office, the internet giant today announced a brand new space dedicated to video creators in Japan and the Asia Pacific region. It’s new YouTube Space in Tokyo is the third of its kind for the company in the world, having previously opened a space in London back in July, as well as one in Los Angeles this past November.

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The multi-purpose area is about 700 square meters in total, and it includes a wide range of areas that would make any YouTube giddy. Among the rooms in the space will be a recording studio, an editing suite, a make-up room, a control room for Ustreaming, as well as a green screen.

It’s a huge opportunity for local content creators in Tokyo, especially those who would not normally have have access to such high quality video production facilities. For members of YouTube’s partner program, the space will be free to use, and in addition to the great facilities they will also have an opportunity to work with other creators, hopefully leading to lots of cross-pollination of talent and interesting collaboration opportunities.

Tom Pickett, the vice president and global head of content operations at YouTube, described the launch of this space as an investment in YouTube creators and an investment in Japan:

At YouTube we are building a platform to allow creators to make great content and reach audiences around the world. In my job I get to work with content creators around the globe and in Japan, and we see a huge opportunity in terms of the talent that is emerging here. Japanese creators are very passionate, and we felt it important to reward that passion with further investment.

In attendance for the launch was Squash Films, a local video content team that produces some incredibly humorous clips on their channel.

For up-and-coming video producers like Squash, this new space will certainly be an amazing place to work and improve their craft.

You can see some photos of the space below, and browse more over on Picasa.

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