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Japanese movie app SlideStory surpasses 1M downloads

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See the original story in Japanese. SlideStory is an iOS app that lets you create a 32-second movie clip from still images on your mobile. Tokyo-based Nanameue, the startup behind the app, has announced that it has recently surpassed a million downloads, a promising total for the still very young service. The app is usually ranked high in the ‘photo/video’ category on the App Store, especially in the Asia region. We understand that they intend to add some new features in an effort to improve user acquisition. The company’s Atsushi Takishima tells us that 45% of their users comes from Japan, but the rest are from abroad, with fans in Thailand and Taiwan in particular. They’ve been relatively successful in acquiring many users across Asia since the app supports nine languages, including Japanese, English, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malay, and Indonesian. Takishima explained: We have not yet deployed any significant advertising or marketing effort. However, Kazuhiro Mizuno, the founder and CEO of Quan Inc, who I previously worked for, advised us on what to do and linked us up with many key people around Asia. Mizuno has strong connections among notable internet companies in the region, and…

slidestory_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

SlideStory is an iOS app that lets you create a 32-second movie clip from still images on your mobile. Tokyo-based Nanameue, the startup behind the app, has announced that it has recently surpassed a million downloads, a promising total for the still very young service. The app is usually ranked high in the ‘photo/video’ category on the App Store, especially in the Asia region. We understand that they intend to add some new features in an effort to improve user acquisition.

takshima_portrait
Atsushi Takishima

The company’s Atsushi Takishima tells us that 45% of their users comes from Japan, but the rest are from abroad, with fans in Thailand and Taiwan in particular. They’ve been relatively successful in acquiring many users across Asia since the app supports nine languages, including Japanese, English, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malay, and Indonesian. Takishima explained:

We have not yet deployed any significant advertising or marketing effort. However, Kazuhiro Mizuno, the founder and CEO of Quan Inc, who I previously worked for, advised us on what to do and linked us up with many key people around Asia.

Mizuno has strong connections among notable internet companies in the region, and has succeeded in partnering with China’s Tencent and Thai mobile telco AIS to promote his company’s mobile apps in these markets.

Speaking of mobile video apps, you may recall that Japanese mobile streaming app TwitCasting has acquired a promising amount of users in Brazil. While the two video apps are very different in nature, Nanameue thinks TwitCasting is a good role model for doing business internationally.

The next challenge

When creating and sharing a movie clip on SlideStory, the current version lets you upload the clip to third-party platforms like Twipple and then share that link on other social media. In this way, the company doesn’t need a backend environment for storage, and can concentrate on giving users a better experience, with things like custom SlideStory embed code for blogs, for example. But there’s a limit in the variety of functions they can provide without their own storage. Nanameue is currently working on that, and they expect to launch that in about a month.

Considering the fact that more than a half of their entire user base is from South East Asia, they are also planning to launch an Android version, since that platform is more widely used in that region.

SlideStory was initially launched back on October 3rd, 2013. Six months have passed since then, and it’s really encouraging that they have a clear vision of the future. The company raised seed funding of about $300,000 from Skyland Ventures late last year, and they are making efforts to raise more funds soon.

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Japan’s SlideStory movie maker app off to a hot start

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SlideStory is a movie and slides how creation application from Japan-based nanameue [1]. That developer has previously done some photo application development for the likes of Line and WeChat, as well as the uber-strange Kenstagram photo app. Our readers may recall that the company raised funds from Skyland Ventures last year. According to an interview over on Typemag (in Japanese), the app has seen more than 800,000 downloads since its release back in October, which is a pretty good start for an application in this genre. In addition to its home market of Japan, SlideStory appears to be getting some downloads in Thailand and Taiwan as well. We have previously looked at similar apps like Honda’s RoadMovies or Glue-th Inc’s Mechika Boola which can be used to create similar kinds of short movies. SlideStory’s ability to create movies from still images on your camera roll or from your social network is really great though, and I hope to follow up with a full review once I’ve spent more time with it. If you’d like to try out SlideStory, it’s available as a free download for iOS. An example of one a video slideshow produced with the app can be found…

slidestory

SlideStory is a movie and slides how creation application from Japan-based nanameue [1]. That developer has previously done some photo application development for the likes of Line and WeChat, as well as the uber-strange Kenstagram photo app. Our readers may recall that the company raised funds from Skyland Ventures last year.

According to an interview over on Typemag (in Japanese), the app has seen more than 800,000 downloads since its release back in October, which is a pretty good start for an application in this genre. In addition to its home market of Japan, SlideStory appears to be getting some downloads in Thailand and Taiwan as well.

We have previously looked at similar apps like Honda’s RoadMovies or Glue-th Inc’s Mechika Boola which can be used to create similar kinds of short movies. SlideStory’s ability to create movies from still images on your camera roll or from your social network is really great though, and I hope to follow up with a full review once I’ve spent more time with it.

If you’d like to try out SlideStory, it’s available as a free download for iOS. An example of one a video slideshow produced with the app can be found below.


  1. Don’t ask me how to pronounce nanameue!  ↩

Skyland Ventures turns its focus to mobile, co-invests in movie-making app

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures, an investment fund focused on startups, announced it has allocated its 200 million yen (approximately $2 million) fund to invest in smartphone app developers. The fund is expected to be finishing investments by next June. You may recall our recent article citing analyst’s prediction that about 60% of Japanese mobile users will switch to smartphones by 2014. Since cheaper smartphone handsets will be more easily available to many consumers, this shift will of course occur in other parts of the world as well. Obviously for Skyland, getting on board with this trend makes sense. Coinciding with this announcement, the group also disclosed its investment in Japanese mobile development startup Nanameue, which also received investment from East Ventures to the tune of 30 million yen ($300,000) [1]. The startup was launched back in May by Atsushi Takishima and Takahiro Ishihama. The pair previously worked with Japanese startup Quan, known for its apps targeting the Southeast Asian region. SlideStory, one of Nanameue’s apps, has already surpassed 400,000 downloads, with users mainly in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan. The total downloads across all 12 of their apps has reached over 2.3 million. SlideStory allows you…

slidestory_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures, an investment fund focused on startups, announced it has allocated its 200 million yen (approximately $2 million) fund to invest in smartphone app developers. The fund is expected to be finishing investments by next June.

You may recall our recent article citing analyst’s prediction that about 60% of Japanese mobile users will switch to smartphones by 2014. Since cheaper smartphone handsets will be more easily available to many consumers, this shift will of course occur in other parts of the world as well. Obviously for Skyland, getting on board with this trend makes sense.

Coinciding with this announcement, the group also disclosed its investment in Japanese mobile development startup Nanameue, which also received investment from East Ventures to the tune of 30 million yen ($300,000) [1].

The startup was launched back in May by Atsushi Takishima and Takahiro Ishihama. The pair previously worked with Japanese startup Quan, known for its apps targeting the Southeast Asian region. SlideStory, one of Nanameue’s apps, has already surpassed 400,000 downloads, with users mainly in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan.

The total downloads across all 12 of their apps has reached over 2.3 million.

SlideStory allows you to create a movie clip from 15 still images, or you can also create a clip of up to 32 seconds by splicing multiple clips. Its functionality resembles Korea’s Tripvi Album or Honda Motor’s RoadMovies app.


  1. East Ventures is also a limited partner for Skyland Ventures.