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Handie: An affordable, functional prosthetic hand, made in Japan with 3D printing

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See the original article in Japanese Before we go any further, please check out the movie above. What you’re looking at is one of the many prototype devices developed for the recent Gugen hardware contest held in Tokyo on December 7th. Its developers are a team of three (a software engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a designer) who came together for this contest and developed this device. Users can create a functioning prosthetic arm by connecting the device with a smartphone, sensors, and a 3D printer. Affectionately named ‘Handie’, the prosthetic arm won contest. Gugen is an event focused on identifying business-oriented hardware prototypes, and provides reward to top talent. A member of its executive committee, Yasunori Okajima, says the number of entries reached almost 200 this year. Before participants were mostly those who enjoy creating electronics as a hobby. But this time, however, I see many more participants creating things that are business-oriented. ‘Makers’ is more than just a buzzword Chris Anderson is a genius at creating buzzwords. He finds the structure of latest trends, and expresses that trend with one powerful word to facilitate an entire movement. When he published the books The Long tail and Free, even…

See the original article in Japanese

Before we go any further, please check out the movie above. What you’re looking at is one of the many prototype devices developed for the recent Gugen hardware contest held in Tokyo on December 7th. Its developers are a team of three (a software engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a designer) who came together for this contest and developed this device. Users can create a functioning prosthetic arm by connecting the device with a smartphone, sensors, and a 3D printer. Affectionately named ‘Handie’, the prosthetic arm won contest.

Gugen is an event focused on identifying business-oriented hardware prototypes, and provides reward to top talent. A member of its executive committee, Yasunori Okajima, says the number of entries reached almost 200 this year.

Before participants were mostly those who enjoy creating electronics as a hobby. But this time, however, I see many more participants creating things that are business-oriented.

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‘Makers’ is more than just a buzzword

Chris Anderson is a genius at creating buzzwords. He finds the structure of latest trends, and expresses that trend with one powerful word to facilitate an entire movement. When he published the books The Long tail and Free, even though the concepts were not brand new, many businesses then followed those trends. His most recent work, Makers, is no exception. Here in Tokyo, 3D printers appeared in many places all of a sudden, and media too have begun paying attention to this trend. A Makers boom suddenly started, but it soon cooled off.

What we need is not just a temporary trend or buzzword, but more initiatives like Gugen that try to tap into the inherent potential of the concept.

Three components for hardware creation

There are three components typically associated with developing hardware or electronics:

  • Create molding: exterior design.
  • Create software: the fusion of online and built-in software
  • Create electronics: open-source hardware such as Arduino

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Because we can easily see and touch exteriors, 3D printers quickly became a sort of symbol for Makers. And this process of creating something from scratch is definitely exciting.

Handie’s exterior can be created at a reasonable price thanks to 3D printers. With data and printers, Handie can be created anywhere. However, there are two other important factors involved in building Handie:

  • All the software is smartphone apps, which cuts down the cost.
  • Motors and sensors are not customized parts. By putting general parts together, the team could create this device much faster.

Of course, Handie is not the kind of device anyone can develop. The most amazing part is its mechanical design. While multiple motors are typically needed to move fingers, the team managed to do it with only one motor.

And while not everyone can develop this level of device, as long as the developer has the core idea and the experience, they can create advanced devices like Handie.

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Potential for business

Why is this new way of creating hardware and electronics getting so much attention right now? One of the reasons is that it represent significant potential for business expansion. When it comes to creating something entirely, the important thing to keep in mind is this notion of expansion.

Handie could never have been built without smartphone software. Yet with only smartphone apps Handie cannot be built. This is what I mean when I talk about expansion. As a result of such ideas, the shift from two dimensions to three dimensions has now accelerated.

For those who are interested in what kind of hardware can be developed by individuals, we’d like to list some of the other entries in the Gugen contest 1.

Squama

Squama is a screen that lets users can control transparency. At the contest, the developer mentioned that the panel can make an office more open while it also protecting privacy. In addition, it has an energy-saving effect in heated rooms.

写真 2013-12-07 17 24 21

Universal Earphones

This earphone automatically recognizes if it was put into your left of right ear, and then proceeds to play the right sounds.

写真 2013-12-07 16 01 04

Handie

As mentioned above, it aims to provide reasonably priced prosthetic arms using just a 3D printer and smartphone apps. It’s only for the people who lost a hand or the finger, it could be used as “a third arm” for everyone in the future.

写真 2013-12-07 16 02 13

Telemba

Telemba is a video-chat Robot created by connecting android devices and other electronic parts with a Roomba (robotic vacuum cleaner). It was quite amazing to watch the team members participated in the awards ceremony through Telemba.

写真 2013-12-07 16 06 35

PocoPoco

PocoPoco is an intuitive and sophisticated music interface. Each part was carefully chosen to realize elegant movement of the interface. PocoPoco played a short performance at the event, drawing a significant the audience.

写真 2013-12-07 17 08 59


  1. You can see the whole list of entries on their website.  ↩

Survey yields surprising insights into smartphone use in Japan

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Japanese software development company Just sytems has conducted a survey of 1,100 respondents ages 15 to 69 about about their usage of mobile and social media. The survey used the company’s product Fastask, an online survey and questionnaire platform that works similar to Survey Monkey. The same survey was conducted back in July of 2012, the number of smartphone users exceeded the number of feature phone users by only a little: 48% to 47.7%. Smartphone usage is more common for people in their teens, 20s, and 30s, with a surprising 75% of kids ages 10 to 20 carrying smartphones. People in their 20s owning smartphones about 70%, and 30s at roughly 61%. When asked about which mobile apps that they use most frequently in a given day, the app with the most usage time was Yahoo Japan, at about 24 minutes per day. Both male and females in their teens and 20s used social apps like Line, Facebook, and Twitter about 80 minutes per day. Teen girls use these apps more heavily than other segments, led by Line at 38 minutes, Twitter for 37 minutes, and Facebook for eight minutes per day. Respondents were also asked about the App Store’s…

Survey-Fastask-Justsystems

Japanese software development company Just sytems has conducted a survey of 1,100 respondents ages 15 to 69 about about their usage of mobile and social media. The survey used the company’s product Fastask, an online survey and questionnaire platform that works similar to Survey Monkey.

The same survey was conducted back in July of 2012, the number of smartphone users exceeded the number of feature phone users by only a little: 48% to 47.7%. Smartphone usage is more common for people in their teens, 20s, and 30s, with a surprising 75% of kids ages 10 to 20 carrying smartphones. People in their 20s owning smartphones about 70%, and 30s at roughly 61%.

When asked about which mobile apps that they use most frequently in a given day, the app with the most usage time was Yahoo Japan, at about 24 minutes per day. Both male and females in their teens and 20s used social apps like Line, Facebook, and Twitter about 80 minutes per day. Teen girls use these apps more heavily than other segments, led by Line at 38 minutes, Twitter for 37 minutes, and Facebook for eight minutes per day.

docomo-smartphone
Docomo smartphone launch, 2012

Respondents were also asked about the App Store’s price hike in October. Almost 60% of iPhone users were aware of it, and 54% noted that they are considering cutting back on the purchase of paid apps. On a related topic, the survey also found that almost 53% of iPhone users use some sort of paid app for managing their schedule, in contrast to 41% of Android users.

The fact that this survey was conducted solely online may mean that the results skewed more towards tech-savvy smarphone users. But even so, the survey gives us a decent rough idea of the state of smartphone usage in this country. The entire report can be found over on the Fastask website.

Can CocoPPa succeed overseas with a Japanese monetization model?

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based United, the company behind the popular homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced today it has started looking for third-party content holders in the character business as possible collaborators. The startup is planning to provide app users with paid content this coming fall, and hopefully by partnering with many content holders it can accumulate a rich variety of wallpapers and icons. This will be CocoPPa’s first attempt at monetizing. Some of our readers may recall that the company has partnered with Tokyo Otaku Mode, bringing illustrations from TOM to their smartphone homescreens. This collaboration provided content for free, but in the future users will pay to get icons or wallpapers featuring popular characters from prominent IP holders. When we think about this kind of business models, Line Corporation’s paid stickers also come to mind. According to that company, sticker sales generated revenue worth 1.74 billion yen ($17.4 million) in the three months from January to March, accounting for 30% of their overall income, with most of that coming from users in Japan. But when we look at the demographics of CocoPPa users (see below), they are mostly women in their early 20s, with 86% of…

cocoppa

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based United, the company behind the popular homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced today it has started looking for third-party content holders in the character business as possible collaborators.

The startup is planning to provide app users with paid content this coming fall, and hopefully by partnering with many content holders it can accumulate a rich variety of wallpapers and icons.

This will be CocoPPa’s first attempt at monetizing. Some of our readers may recall that the company has partnered with Tokyo Otaku Mode, bringing illustrations from TOM to their smartphone homescreens. This collaboration provided content for free, but in the future users will pay to get icons or wallpapers featuring popular characters from prominent IP holders.

When we think about this kind of business models, Line Corporation’s paid stickers also come to mind. According to that company, sticker sales generated revenue worth 1.74 billion yen ($17.4 million) in the three months from January to March, accounting for 30% of their overall income, with most of that coming from users in Japan. But when we look at the demographics of CocoPPa users (see below), they are mostly women in their early 20s, with 86% of users coming from outside Japan. So it will be interesting to see if such an internationally-focused app can generate revenue in this way.

cocoppa-user-distribution

CocoPPa has already surpassed 10 million downloads in its first 11 months since the launch. If you are interested in partnering with them, feel free to apply over on their website.

If you haven’t yet tried the CocoPPa app, it is available for free on iOS and Android. The iOS app was launched back on July 26th, 2012, and the Android version followed on May 29th, 2013. As of June 22nd, iOS accounts for 90% of the app’s total downloads.

cocoppa-monthly-downloads

Hello Kitty for your Smartphone: 5 Cute Apps to Try

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Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! Perhaps the most popular of Japan’s many cute characters is Hello Kitty from Sanrio. This tiny cat absolutely everywhere, even on our mobile phones. Over on App Annie, searching ‘Hello Kitty’ brings up an astonishing 328 results. Here are just five of the apps we think you should consider downloading first. 1. Hello Kitty Mail ¶ One of the reasons that so many Japanese girls hesitated to switch to smartphones from feature phones was that it would be more difficult to send texts with cute emojis. Girls all have their favorite emoticons, and switching means that they would have to abandon them. But this Hello Kitty Mail app lets users send emails with cute Hello Kitty emojis, as well as Little Twin Sisters and My Melody. Additional emoji can be purchased within the app. If you’d like to download it, you can get it over on the app store for 170 yen (about $1.99). 2. Hello Kitty World ¶ Japanese web portal company Nifty released its iOS app in cooperation with Sanrio Wave back in April of 2012. And within just a year, the app has expanded to over 52 countries, with more than one…

HelloKittyRun!Run!Run!Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run!

Perhaps the most popular of Japan’s many cute characters is Hello Kitty from Sanrio. This tiny cat absolutely everywhere, even on our mobile phones. Over on App Annie, searching ‘Hello Kitty’ brings up an astonishing 328 results. Here are just five of the apps we think you should consider downloading first.

1. Hello Kitty Mail

HelloKittyMailOne of the reasons that so many Japanese girls hesitated to switch to smartphones from feature phones was that it would be more difficult to send texts with cute emojis. Girls all have their favorite emoticons, and switching means that they would have to abandon them. But this Hello Kitty Mail app lets users send emails with cute Hello Kitty emojis, as well as Little Twin Sisters and My Melody. Additional emoji can be purchased within the app. If you’d like to download it, you can get it over on the app store for 170 yen (about $1.99).

2. Hello Kitty World

HelloKitty-WorldJapanese web portal company Nifty released its iOS app in cooperation with Sanrio Wave back in April of 2012. And within just a year, the app has expanded to over 52 countries, with more than one million total downloads as of February 2013. With this app, users can create their own playland using different Sanrio characters. The social feature allows players to compete with each other through Twitter and Facebook too. The app has an English website which you can check out here.

3. Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run!

HelloKittyRun!Run!Run!-iconHello Kitty Run! Run! Run! is an app developed by the giant gaming company NamcoBandai, released back in May for both iOS and Android. In the game, an 8-bit Hello Kitty goes on adventures around the world turning herself into soldiers and witches. There are over 200 costumes for Hello Kitty to gear up in and over 50 stages to beat. The game is very simple and can be controlled by two buttons on the sides of the screen, making it suitable even for kids.

Check out Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! in action below.

4. Hello Kitty Stamp Calendar

HelloKitty-StampCalendarThis is a simple calendar app developed by Sanrio Wave featuring original Hello Kitty stamps. The app comes with an original Hello Kitty calendar theme that changes every week. By turning on the app once a day you can see Omikuji, a sort of a fortune-telling or horoscope. The calendar is good for three months, so in order to continue using the app it will be necessary to purchase an additional three months for 115 yen.

Hello Kitty Stamp Calendar is available on iOS for 350 yen (or $3.99).

5. Hello Kitty Face

HelloKitty-Face-iPhonecaseThis one is for true Hello Kitty fans. ‘Hello Kitty Face’ is designed to work with a special iPhone case created by Gourmandise.

The outer case works as Hello Kitty’s body and the app displays her face on your mobile sceen. The iPhone case is available on Amazon Japan for 2,990 yen (or about $31) 1.

To see the official Hello Kitty apps by Sanrio, you can check out Sanrio’s website.


  1. On a related note, this may be the cutest Hello Kitty iPhone case ever.

How do Japanese people use their smartphones?

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We recently wrote about a survey that indicated Japanese people are switching from feature phones to smartphones Since then we’ve stumbled across another survey that sheds even more light on how people in Japan use their smartphones. Typical Japanese salarymen (and women) spend a lot of time commuting to and from work, and this appears to impact the ways people use their smartphones. According to this survey, conducted by PR Times, searching for and reading news was most popular activity at 70%. Searching for destinations and stores (using maps) was next at 54%, and playing games ranked third at 52%. These activities were followed by using social networks and photo apps, also popular actvities here in Japan. If we break it down by gender, men tend to favor mobile news services, while women outscored men in their usage of social neworks and photo apps. The most frequent behavior was searching and reading news, and many people responded that they do this during their lunch time (about 57%), at home while relaxing (about 53%), and during commuting hours (about 51%). The most popular destinations and apps for news were Yahoo News at 83%, Google News at 31%, 2ch Matome news at…

smartphoneWe recently wrote about a survey that indicated Japanese people are switching from feature phones to smartphones Since then we’ve stumbled across another survey that sheds even more light on how people in Japan use their smartphones.

Typical Japanese salarymen (and women) spend a lot of time commuting to and from work, and this appears to impact the ways people use their smartphones. According to this survey, conducted by PR Times, searching for and reading news was most popular activity at 70%. Searching for destinations and stores (using maps) was next at 54%, and playing games ranked third at 52%. These activities were followed by using social networks and photo apps, also popular actvities here in Japan. If we break it down by gender, men tend to favor mobile news services, while women outscored men in their usage of social neworks and photo apps.

The most frequent behavior was searching and reading news, and many people responded that they do this during their lunch time (about 57%), at home while relaxing (about 53%), and during commuting hours (about 51%). The most popular destinations and apps for news were Yahoo News at 83%, Google News at 31%, 2ch Matome news at 17%, and Naver Matome at 12%.

naver-matomeMatome roughly means “round-up” in Japanese, and these sorts of sites are gaining in popularity as curation sites as a whole are experiencing strong user growth. Naver Matome is especially popular with female in their teens, with 35% of them using the site. That’s 22.5% higher compared to other age segments. The survey revealed that 2ch Matome news is a go-to destination for many men in their 20s at 33%. Women in the same age segment prefer Mixi news (at 22%). Nikkei, the digital version of probably the most prestigious financial newspaper in Japan, is read mostly by men in their 50s (at 26%).

When asked about the mobile buying experience, one in four people who regulary read news on smartphones answered that they have bought something on their handsets. Of those same people, 66% have visited official accounts of companies and brands on different social networks, and 47% have been involved in promotional campaigns.

Let your iPhone meditate on this zen smartphone stand from Elecom

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Here’s a fun new smartphone stand from the folks at Elecom (TYO:6750), affectionately called the Buddy Stand. Japan really likes to anthropomorphize things, and this is a good example. The stand is made of silicon, mimicking a human sitting on the floor with legs in the lotus position, folded underneath, or folded off the the side in a more feminine manner. Each position comes in its own set of colors. The smartphone is held where the person’s head should be, creating the feeling of a small character that can accompany on your desk, or at your bedside if you’d like to watch some late night video. The surface is sticky so as to keep your smartphone from slipping, and if any dirt gets on there, you can wipe it down with some water. I wouldn’t mind picking one of these up for my workstation and letting it just run through Tweets using the Trickle app all day. Admittedly, this smartly designed stand doesn’t come too cheap, priced at 3190 yen (or about $34). Check out more photos of the Buddy Stand below, and let us know what you think!

iphone-stand-elecom-aibou-lead

Here’s a fun new smartphone stand from the folks at Elecom (TYO:6750), affectionately called the Buddy Stand. Japan really likes to anthropomorphize things, and this is a good example. The stand is made of silicon, mimicking a human sitting on the floor with legs in the lotus position, folded underneath, or folded off the the side in a more feminine manner. Each position comes in its own set of colors.

The smartphone is held where the person’s head should be, creating the feeling of a small character that can accompany on your desk, or at your bedside if you’d like to watch some late night video. The surface is sticky so as to keep your smartphone from slipping, and if any dirt gets on there, you can wipe it down with some water.

I wouldn’t mind picking one of these up for my workstation and letting it just run through Tweets using the Trickle app all day. Admittedly, this smartly designed stand doesn’t come too cheap, priced at 3190 yen (or about $34).

Check out more photos of the Buddy Stand below, and let us know what you think!

elecom-aibou-stand-pink

iphone-stand

meditation style

aibou-stand-girls

2012 was Apple’s first year on top of Japan’s mobile market

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IDC Japan has released its figures on the Japan mobile market for 2012, and it will likely come as no surprise that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) held the largest share of the smartphone market at 33.1%. Readers may recall that it was just a year ago that Apple topped the smartphone market for the first time in the country. But what I find interesting here is the less imposing figure for the mobile market overall, where Apple now leads with 23.3%. If we compare this with IDC figures from 2011 (see below), it shows just how much progress the Cupertino company has made in Japan, leapfrogging Sharp and Fujitsu [1] for its first year on top of the entire mobile market. Anyone remember that old Wired article from a few years back? Yeah, that doesn’t age so well. [IDC Japan] In IDC’s 2011 report it was ‘Fujitsu/Toshiba’, as it was prior to Fujitsu acquiring Toshiba’s stake in Fujitsu Mobile, which occurred in April 2012.  ↩

IDC Japan has released its figures on the Japan mobile market for 2012, and it will likely come as no surprise that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) held the largest share of the smartphone market at 33.1%. Readers may recall that it was just a year ago that Apple topped the smartphone market for the first time in the country.

But what I find interesting here is the less imposing figure for the mobile market overall, where Apple now leads with 23.3%. If we compare this with IDC figures from 2011 (see below), it shows just how much progress the Cupertino company has made in Japan, leapfrogging Sharp and Fujitsu [1] for its first year on top of the entire mobile market. Anyone remember that old Wired article from a few years back? Yeah, that doesn’t age so well. [IDC Japan]

japan-mobile-market-2012-idc-japan


  1. In IDC’s 2011 report it was ‘Fujitsu/Toshiba’, as it was prior to Fujitsu acquiring Toshiba’s stake in Fujitsu Mobile, which occurred in April 2012.  ↩

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

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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)

muji-speaker-phone

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)

muji-speaker-cord

muji-speaker-remote

muji-speaker-2

muji-speaker-1

Smapo: Can Japan’s answer to Shopkick fend off new competition?

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Many of our readers are likely familiar with Shopkick, a popular smartphone app that rewards customers as they enter a store. Well, Japan has very similar service called Smapo, which provides a smooth combination of in-store hardware and a free smartphone app for both iPhone and Android. I recently had spoke with Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight Inc. (the company behind Smapo) to find out more about this service. With Smapo, all that a user has to do is to download the free app, and turn it on when walking into a participating merchant — exactly like Shopkick. Every time the app is turned on, users receive about 30 yen (about 30 cents) in points which can later be exchanged for gift certificates to be used at participating stores. What differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are so many small shops in Tokyo, and many brands decide to set up within crowded departments where in many cases, there is no proper store entrance. Smapo’s technology is valid as long as…

smapo-logo

Many of our readers are likely familiar with Shopkick, a popular smartphone app that rewards customers as they enter a store. Well, Japan has very similar service called Smapo, which provides a smooth combination of in-store hardware and a free smartphone app for both iPhone and Android.

I recently had spoke with Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight Inc. (the company behind Smapo) to find out more about this service.

With Smapo, all that a user has to do is to download the free app, and turn it on when walking into a participating merchant — exactly like Shopkick. Every time the app is turned on, users receive about 30 yen (about 30 cents) in points which can later be exchanged for gift certificates to be used at participating stores.

What differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are so many small shops in Tokyo, and many brands decide to set up within crowded departments where in many cases, there is no proper store entrance. Smapo’s technology is valid as long as the user is in the store space (the inaudible audio signal does not go beyond the store’s walls) so wherever they are, the system works.

Finding new faces

Many notable merchants have already joined Smapo including mega electronics franchise Bic Camera, department stores Daimaru and Marui, as well as popular fashion retailer United Arrows. All of these merchants wanted a new way to attract consumers. Because many people do their product research in advance on computer and on smartphones these days, there is less of a need to actually visit the stores than before. Newspapers are one common place where merchants advertise, but the number of newspaper subscibers have dropped to half of what they used to be 15 years ago.

The user demographic for Smapo is half male and half female. And in an effort to satisfy the younger female generation, Smapo recently launched 58 more merchants targeting young women, including The Body Shop, and Amo’s Style (a lingerie brand). Early adopter male users are still fans of the app too. At Bic Camera, which can be a heaven for tech savvy geeks, Smapo can bring over 10,000 people to a store monthly.

smapo-iphone

But how effective is Smapo in actually attracting new consumers? Shibata-san cited Marui as an example. Their problem was that people perceived their brand as one specifically for young people, and they wanted to make an effort to bring in customers who shopped there in their youth, but may be a little older now. By bringing users to a specific part of the store such as the men’s shoe section or the women’s bags floor, they managed to land many new customers.

When they run a TV commercial, of all the customers who arrive at Marui, only 10% are new. With Smapo, that number rose to an impressive 40%. And of those 40%, about half the people ended up buying something.

Besides the chat application war that’s famously going down in Japan, O2O is another sector that’s going to generate some heat this year. NTT Docomo have adopted the exact same model as Shopkick and Smapo for their newly launched Shoplat. The system works in the same manner, but it seems that their speciality is restaurants and bars for now.

Ever since their launch in September of 2011, Smapo has seen no significant competitor, which also meant that they were essentially wholly responsible for developing the market. With the largest mobile carrier in Japan now in the game, we expect that this space is going to get far more competitive in the coming months. It is not very often we see such a young startup butting heads against an internet giant in Japan. Stay tuned, because this is going to get interesting.

GREE and Yahoo Japan set up joint venture for mobile social game development

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See our Japanese report on this story Japanese social gaming giant GREE (TYO:3632) and Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) are announcing [1] today that they will establish a joint venture for development of social games for smartphones. The initiative is tentatively called GxYz [2] With 200 million yen (about $2.16 million) in capital dedicated to the venture, this solidifies a partnership that was first announced back in November of 2012. Yahoo Japan is the most popular web portal in Japan, and GREE is looking to tap into that audience, funneling traffic from the smartphone version of the site to social games on GREE. The gaming company also hopes that those users can use Yahoo Wallet to pay for content on GREE. GREE and Yahoo Japan announced back in December that they would be co-sponsoring the Tokyo 2020 Olympic bid. For more details, see GREE’s announcement in English and in Japanese.  ↩ We’re really glad that this is tentative.  ↩

yahoo-gree

See our Japanese report on this story

Japanese social gaming giant GREE (TYO:3632) and Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) are announcing [1] today that they will establish a joint venture for development of social games for smartphones. The initiative is tentatively called GxYz [2]

With 200 million yen (about $2.16 million) in capital dedicated to the venture, this solidifies a partnership that was first announced back in November of 2012. Yahoo Japan is the most popular web portal in Japan, and GREE is looking to tap into that audience, funneling traffic from the smartphone version of the site to social games on GREE. The gaming company also hopes that those users can use Yahoo Wallet to pay for content on GREE.

GREE and Yahoo Japan announced back in December that they would be co-sponsoring the Tokyo 2020 Olympic bid.


  1. For more details, see GREE’s announcement in English and in Japanese.  ↩

  2. We’re really glad that this is tentative.  ↩