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New Japanese mobile app promotes fun dinner conversation

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Japanese internet conglomerate Kakaku.com, the company behind price comparison site Kakaku.com and restaurant review site Tabelog, has just released a new food app called Gochi Reco. There are other food apps out there, but what differentiates Gochi Reco from the rest is that it is used only among a few family members (which are pre-set at the time of registration). Many families exchange emails everyday about what’s for dinner, what time they’re coming home, and whether there’s any grocery shopping to do. However, according to a study conducted by a marketing research company Macromill, almost half of wives cooking for husbands have felt some hostility towards them because of their comments on food. Gochi Reco is focused on making this sort of everyday food-focused communication a little more fun. Using the app, family members can exchange ideas about the dinner menu, or even take a photo of what they had as a record. The designated chef of the household can ask for what dishes other members prefer, and they can respond by sharing their preferences. On the ‘recipe’ tab, there are many recipes from other homes which you can propose to your family from within the app. For every recipe,…

Gochi-Reco-characters

Japanese internet conglomerate Kakaku.com, the company behind price comparison site Kakaku.com and restaurant review site Tabelog, has just released a new food app called Gochi Reco.

There are other food apps out there, but what differentiates Gochi Reco from the rest is that it is used only among a few family members (which are pre-set at the time of registration). Many families exchange emails everyday about what’s for dinner, what time they’re coming home, and whether there’s any grocery shopping to do. However, according to a study conducted by a marketing research company Macromill, almost half of wives cooking for husbands have felt some hostility towards them because of their comments on food. Gochi Reco is focused on making this sort of everyday food-focused communication a little more fun.

Gochi-Reco-chat

Using the app, family members can exchange ideas about the dinner menu, or even take a photo of what they had as a record. The designated chef of the household can ask for what dishes other members prefer, and they can respond by sharing their preferences. On the ‘recipe’ tab, there are many recipes from other homes which you can propose to your family from within the app. For every recipe, there is an “add to shopping list” button, where all necessary ingredients are added to your shopping list.

I would have imagined that Cookpad, the biggest recipe portal in Japan, would release an app like this. And in fact, the company did release an iOS app a while back called Omusubi Ken (‘omusubi’ means ‘rice balls’ in Japanese). The app allows its users to nurture a puppy that lives in your virtual kitchen by posting photos of home cooked meals. By posting more often, you receive clothes for your puppy and can even redecorate your kitchen.

The approach of enhancing communication among families around dinner is an approach we haven’t seen yet. If you’d like to try it out, Gochi Reco is available both on iOS and on Android.

Other popular food apps in Japan include Snapdish, which we’ve covered in the past. It works like a social network for exchanging photos and recipes for home cooked meals. A whopping 70% of the photos shared in the app are cooked at home.

Another food photo app, Miil, has 300,000 downloads since its initial release back in 2011. You can read more about Miil in a past article.

Escaping the Galapagos: 5 Japanese startups that looked beyond home

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Startups in Japan can loosely be classified into two groups: those who look beyond Japan’s borders, and those who do not. While there’s nothing wrong with a company settling into a local niche market, we can’t help but admire the ambition of some Japanese companies who look at the internet as an enabler that lets them reach global markets. Conversely, there are many services that exist only in Japan that we wish were available for the entire world to use. We’d like to take a moment to recognize five Japanese companies that have either seen some global success, or have shown exceptional global ambition [1]. And if possible, we hope to bring you more such examples next month too. I’m going to informally dub this the unofficial “Galapagos Bridge Awards”, to recognize those who build international bridges, thus helping to destroy the so-called Galapagos syndrome (used so often to refer to the mobile space). If the name sticks, perhaps I’ll forge some bronze turtle statues in my kiln and pass them out to the winners next time. Here are the five companies in no particular order: Snapeee ¶ Japanese photo decoration apps have much international appeal, as the notion of…

galapagos bridge awards
Photo by wikipedia, fun annotations by us

Startups in Japan can loosely be classified into two groups: those who look beyond Japan’s borders, and those who do not. While there’s nothing wrong with a company settling into a local niche market, we can’t help but admire the ambition of some Japanese companies who look at the internet as an enabler that lets them reach global markets. Conversely, there are many services that exist only in Japan that we wish were available for the entire world to use.

We’d like to take a moment to recognize five Japanese companies that have either seen some global success, or have shown exceptional global ambition [1]. And if possible, we hope to bring you more such examples next month too. I’m going to informally dub this the unofficial “Galapagos Bridge Awards”, to recognize those who build international bridges, thus helping to destroy the so-called Galapagos syndrome (used so often to refer to the mobile space). If the name sticks, perhaps I’ll forge some bronze turtle statues in my kiln and pass them out to the winners next time.

Here are the five companies in no particular order:

Snapeee

snapeee

Japanese photo decoration apps have much international appeal, as the notion of ‘kawaii’ is a very exportable one. And perhaps because of that, Snapeee has mustered popularity in most countries around the Asian region. Targeting female users, it has accumulated more than 4 million users from around the world, with 80% of its users coming from outside its homes market of Japan. So far the service is proving most popular in regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Readers may recall that we mentioned Snapeee a little while back in our Japan’s cutest mobile apps feature, and the company made headlines earlier today when it announced a round of series B funding.

See Snapeee in the SD Japan database

Snapdish

snapdish

If any company really belongs on this list, it’s probably the food photo app Snapdish. In fact, it was just a few weeks back that we heard the company’s founder, Hidetaka Fukushima, speak about building his business for the global market from the very start. It’s great to see yet another Japanese photo app that’s doing well overseas. If this keeps up, we might have to consider calling it a trend!

See Snapdish in the SD Japan database

Tokyo Otaku Mode

tokyo-otaku-mode-lead

This startup, which focuses on sharing anime, manga, and cosplay related content to international audiences, showed pretty great foresight in betting on Facebook before it really picked up any momentum in Japan. Tokyo Otaku Mode has grown its fan base on the social platform to more than 11 million fans, and is trying to solidify its web content offerings, while serving as a bridge to other Japanese companies struggling for visibility outside of their home market (see Lawson and MTV81).

See Tokyo Otaku Mode in the SD Japan database

Cinnamon

miku-hirano-cinnamon
Cinnamon CEO Miku Hirano

I swear, when I started making this list it wasn’t nearly as heavy with photo apps as this. But it’s hard not to admire these Japanese founders who decided to set up their company in Singapore, and then hop on down to Vietnam to start their quest to build a photo app that will target the Southeast Asian market to start. That app, Seconds, has already launched on Google Play for Vietnam and Thailand, and the company is considering other Asian regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore next. I had a chance to interview Cinnamon’s CEO, Miku Hirano, back in April, so if you’d like to hear more about what she has planned, do check out that conversation.

See Cinnamon in the SD Japan database

Crypton Future Media

dominos-pizza-hatsune-miku
Hatsune Miku x Dominos collaboration

This company might not fall under our usual ‘startup umbrella’, but with 30 employees the Sapporo-based media company is a very small one — but few have had such a big global impact. This is the group behind the voice synthesizer application Vocaloid (having acquired Vocaloid 2 from Yamaha), and the Hatsune Miku character which has emerged from Japanese subculture to become a mainstream icon. We’ve recently written about successful Hatsune Miku collaborations with Domino’s Pizza and fashion company Ceno.

You can check out their website over at crypton.co.jp

See Crypton Future Media in the SD Japan database

Honorable Mention


  1. There are lots of others, of course, but these are just the ones that stood out to us this month. I’m sure many readers will suggest others, and we’re eager to hear them.  ↩

Snapdish founder on going global from the start

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At e27’s Echelon satellite event in Tokyo today, Hidetaka Fukushima of Snapdish presented a little background about how his startup set out to take on a global market from the very start. This is certainly unique for any startup, but it’s especially unique in Japan where not too many startups venture beyond the domestic market – and even few startups succeed in their efforts. Hidetaka explained that the majority of posts to Snapdish are of homemade food, specifically 70% – so it’s not just restaurant pictures. They have about 8000 posts per day, and about 2 million in total to date. Currently they’re available in 11 languages, but the process of localizing their service went beyond just simple translation. Hidetake noted that when translating their ‘yummy’ button into other languages requires consideration of what will work in other cultures. So for Japanese that meant using ‘mogumogu’ (which means something like ‘nom nom’). But he explains that they even create food categories based on regional preferences, so for example, China has different categories than Japan. Eventually they came to the realization that taking pictures of food was something that was particular to Asia, and they figured that Asia was going to…

hidetaka fukushima

At e27’s Echelon satellite event in Tokyo today, Hidetaka Fukushima of Snapdish presented a little background about how his startup set out to take on a global market from the very start. This is certainly unique for any startup, but it’s especially unique in Japan where not too many startups venture beyond the domestic market – and even few startups succeed in their efforts.

Hidetaka explained that the majority of posts to Snapdish are of homemade food, specifically 70% – so it’s not just restaurant pictures. They have about 8000 posts per day, and about 2 million in total to date.

Currently they’re available in 11 languages, but the process of localizing their service went beyond just simple translation. Hidetake noted that when translating their ‘yummy’ button into other languages requires consideration of what will work in other cultures. So for Japanese that meant using ‘mogumogu’ (which means something like ‘nom nom’). But he explains that they even create food categories based on regional preferences, so for example, China has different categories than Japan.

Eventually they came to the realization that taking pictures of food was something that was particular to Asia, and they figured that Asia was going to be a big market for them. Nevertheless, their team is a very international one, with members from Japan, German, the US, Taiwan, and Denmark.

hidetaka fukushima
Snapdish’s Hidetaka Fukushima

The global reach of the smartphone platform let them have significant reach upon launch, becoming the number one photo app in Japan, number eight in Taiwan, seventh in Singapore, and 11th in China. Eventually Chinese social network Renren approached them about a partnership, and they also established cooperation with SK Telecom. They’ve had some good media coverage too, with a mention in Travel + Leisure, as well as a mention on ABCNews.com as one of the top five food photo apps.

During the Q&A session, someone asked about Snapdish monetization strategy, and Hidetaka explained that they have official accounts for companies. Currently those accounts are free, but they will be charged later on. They plan to do paid campaigns eventually as well.

Hidetaka is a pretty sharp founder, so it will be interesting to see if they can make that jump from a large user base to profitability.

Meet 5 of Japan’s top photo apps

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In comparison to other countries around the world, Japan has a special affinity for camera apps. In fact, according to a recent report from Flurry Japanese mobile users are more likely to use photo apps than mobile users in any other country. We’ve written about a number of them over the past couple of months, and I thought we take her to expect look at a few of the best [1] ones today. So here they are, in no particular order: FX Camera ¶ One of the earliest entries in the Japan photo app space was FX Camera which launched way back in 2009. This app isn’t very flashy, but it has a solid repertoire of filters and effects would certainly come in handy on any mobile device. Since its launch a few years back it has accumulated more than 25 million downloads, certainly an impressive feat for its parent company Bit Cellar. See our recent review of FX Camera for more information. Download: iOS | Android Otaku Camera ¶ This app doesn’t have the sort of download counts that other apps on this list have achieved, but it was developed by one of Japan’s hottest startups, Tokyu Otaku Mode….

In comparison to other countries around the world, Japan has a special affinity for camera apps. In fact, according to a recent report from Flurry Japanese mobile users are more likely to use photo apps than mobile users in any other country.

We’ve written about a number of them over the past couple of months, and I thought we take her to expect look at a few of the best [1] ones today. So here they are, in no particular order:

FX Camera

fx-camera

One of the earliest entries in the Japan photo app space was FX Camera which launched way back in 2009. This app isn’t very flashy, but it has a solid repertoire of filters and effects would certainly come in handy on any mobile device. Since its launch a few years back it has accumulated more than 25 million downloads, certainly an impressive feat for its parent company Bit Cellar. See our recent review of FX Camera for more information.

Download: iOS | Android

Otaku Camera

otaku-camera

This app doesn’t have the sort of download counts that other apps on this list have achieved, but it was developed by one of Japan’s hottest startups, Tokyu Otaku Mode. What Otaku Camera does is turn your pictures into an anime/manga style graphic. Last month the application surpassed the 1 million downloads mark, and we expect that with the company’s vast fan base that Otaku Camera will continue to grow. Check out our video demo below for more info about it how it works.

Download: iOS | Android

SnapDish

snapdish

Just like in the West, Japan has more than a few food photography apps. Perhaps the most notable foodie photo app is SnapDish. The application was launched way back in May 2011, and since then it has catalogued more than 1.7 million pictures of food. Interestingly, it primarily encourages users to share pictures of food they’ve cooked themselves, as opposed to just snaps taken in a restaurant.

The company has aspirations on global markets too, and is already available in a variety of languages in addition to Japanese and English. For more information about the startup check out out interview with them from back in February.

Download: iOS | Android

Papelook

papelook

Just a few weeks ago the Japanese photo application Papelook surpassed the 4 million downloads mark on iOS, launching a new Android app at that time as well. Papelook is not your typical photo application insofar as you’re not really going to be taking photos with it. But rather you can use it to combine and repurpose a lot of the photos that you’ve taken with other apps to build collages. I had a lot of fun testing this one, as you can see in the video demo below. The application is very much targeted at girls and it definitely falls into ‘Kawaii apps’ application category.

Download: iOS | Android

Line Camera

line-camera

Line Camera took off very quickly since it was first released nearly a year ago. And with more than 20 million downloads since then, largely thanks to the wildly popular Line chat app as a distribution platform, this camera application hit number one in the photo category in 28 countries, mostly around Asia. The application allows for lots of fun photo decoration, following the same style as the popular stamps/stickers for which Line Corporation has become famous.

Download: iOS | Android

Honorable mention:

See also: 5 photo apps with fantastic skin filters that Japanese women prefer


  1. Like any list of this sort, this is a subjective ranking and I’m sure that there are many great camera apps from Japan that we have missed. If so, let us know! We’d be happy to hear from you.  ↩

How Japan’s SnapDish app catered to foreign foodies

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Many mobile applications from Japan aspire to reach a global audience. The food photo and recipe-sharing mobile app SnapDish is an example of such app. And so far, it has fared well. Up until now it has been available in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and Korean. But it recently announced the addition of seven more: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Indonesian, and Thai. Snapdish now potentially supports three billion people speaking those eleven languages around the world. The app, which lets cooking enthusiasts edit and share food photos, was launched in May 2011. To date it has cataloged more than 1.7 million pictures, with more than 10 million Yummies (similar to a Facebook’s Like function). SnapDish is getting more and more popular, mainly among people who cook at home. They are able to connect with a wide range of people and chat about cooking through photos and recipes. We recently spoke to a SnapDish representative in charge of language support. His comments follow below. SnapDish on going global SnapDish representative: When developing and designing the app, which we launched in May of 2011, we had overseas users in mind from the very beginning and we planned…

snapdish_logo

Many mobile applications from Japan aspire to reach a global audience. The food photo and recipe-sharing mobile app SnapDish is an example of such app. And so far, it has fared well.

Up until now it has been available in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and Korean. But it recently announced the addition of seven more: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Indonesian, and Thai. Snapdish now potentially supports three billion people speaking those eleven languages around the world.

The app, which lets cooking enthusiasts edit and share food photos, was launched in May 2011. To date it has cataloged more than 1.7 million pictures, with more than 10 million Yummies (similar to a Facebook’s Like function).

SnapDish is getting more and more popular, mainly among people who cook at home. They are able to connect with a wide range of people and chat about cooking through photos and recipes. We recently spoke to a SnapDish representative in charge of language support. His comments follow below.

SnapDish on going global

SnapDish representative: When developing and designing the app, which we launched in May of 2011, we had overseas users in mind from the very beginning and we planned to launch its English and Japanese versions at the same time. So with the intention of having an English user interface, instead of simply translating the context literally, we designed the app so it would be easy to use for both Japanese and non-Japanese users.

snapdish_thai

We also paid close attention to whether or not English expressions in the app sound fun for English users. For example, there is a button called Mogu Mogu in the Japanese version. This works like Facebook’s Like button and users can click it when they like other users’ photos. But in the English version, this button is instead labeled Yummy. Whereas Mogu mogu translates more literally into English as nom nom or chomp chomp, but since such expressions are not as friendly or appealing in English, SnapDish chose the more natural-sounding Yummy. We are taking equal care to use natural expressions as we expand into other languages.

As a result, the application has been regularly downloaded overseas since its initial release. The app gained many users, particularly in Southeast Asia and Chinese-speaking regions, and we quickly learned that it’s not only Japanese foodies, but also folks in other Asian countries like the combination of food and photos.

Even after launching apps, we figure out users’ needs and try to meet those them. For example, genres that can be tagged on pictures are customized to each countries’ food culture. Since the application was developed from the very beginning with foreign users in mind, many users overseas regularly report that they didn’t realize that the application was Japanese. American users often assume that it was developed in an English-speaking country. Such feedback confirms that even foreign users can use the application seamlessly.

Building the business

SnapDish representative: Last year, we expanded our service further by partnering with large foreign companies such as China’s Renren.com and Korea’s SK Planet. Thanks to these partnerships we realized that there are many people who think the SnapDish app can meet the needs of Asian consumers, and that our service can add value.

Also, we actively applied for overseas startup pitch events last year and participated in Singapore’s Echelon in June, Taiwan’s IDEAS Show in July, and GMIC-SV which was held in San Jose, USA, in October. At those events, we not only made presentations but also set up our booth in venues, so we were able to talk with existing overseas users and build our network. We were even interviewed by foreign media companies, so it was very beneficial from a promotional standpoint as well.

We were well-received especially in Asia, and we had a chance to pitch at Echelon as one of the top 10 startups selected from six Asian countries. We asked an event organizer about the reason why we were selected, and we were told that we differentiated our app from other food photo apps with a home-cooking feature, and that it was great that we had developed a monetization plan.

What’s next for SnapDish?

e27_echelon-1

SnapDish rep: While still paying attention to details in the app, we are looking to provide promotional and communication features that fit in with each local market. For example, we are planning to launch our gift campaign, which is only available in Japan at the moment, to foreign markets.

We continue to put our priority on Asia for our international business. Of course, it doesn’t mean that other regions such as Europe are not important. In Asia, we have already established a substantial user base and are forming a community there. We are already well-grounded in the Asian market, so we would like to solidify that market position.

We also want to continue to take part in pitch events abroad, and at the same time, just like we promoted our service in Asia last year, we are looking for a chance to do the same in Europe as well.

If you want to download SnapDish, you can get it here for iOS and Android.

(Photo: e27)