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Japan’s Tabelog has no problems feeding paid memberships to users

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Japan’s Kakaku.com, the company that operates food review portal Tabelog, has announced that its premium membership (which costs 315 yen per month [1]) has now reached 350,000 subscribers as of March 16. The last time we checked in on these figures was last August, when it had 250,000 members. So we can say that growth since that time has been very impressive, especially in the face of challenges from new startups in the food space here in Japan. Tabelog’s premium service offers high discount coupons (ranging from 20% to 100% off), and mobile apps with advanced sorting/filtering preferences. This premium service began back in September of 2010. According to Kakaku.com, there are over 760,000 restaurants currently registered on Tabelog, with 5 million reviews, and 53 million monthly users split (almost evenly) among PC and smartphones. Or just over $3.  ↩

Japan’s Kakaku.com, the company that operates food review portal Tabelog, has announced that its premium membership (which costs 315 yen per month [1]) has now reached 350,000 subscribers as of March 16. The last time we checked in on these figures was last August, when it had 250,000 members. So we can say that growth since that time has been very impressive, especially in the face of challenges from new startups in the food space here in Japan.

Tabelog’s premium service offers high discount coupons (ranging from 20% to 100% off), and mobile apps with advanced sorting/filtering preferences. This premium service began back in September of 2010.

According to Kakaku.com, there are over 760,000 restaurants currently registered on Tabelog, with 5 million reviews, and 53 million monthly users split (almost evenly) among PC and smartphones.

tabelog-paid-memberships


  1. Or just over $3.  ↩

Japan’s Tabelog hits 5M restaurant reviews, you’d need 13.5 years to read them all

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The Japanese equivalent of Yelp, Tabelog, announced today that its total number of restaurant reviews have surpassed five million. To celebrate this huge milestone, the review site has launched a campaign where 50 couples will be invited to 50 restaurants, all of which have reviews exceeding 4.0. Of all the restaurants listed on the site, 760,000 to be specific, only 0.1% meet this criteria. Tabelog opened way back in March of 2005, and with 50 million monthly visitors it is now the go-to destination for many Japanese people looking for a great place to eat. According to the company, five million reviews add up to roughly 2.3 billion Japanese characters. To understand how impressive this number is, it would take about 13.5 years to read it all out loud, and it would take a daily newspaper 25.2 years to publish as much. The special landing page that Tablog has created for its campaign is convenient even if you’re not going to participate. It showcases 50 top-notch restaurants in Japan by region, information normally restricted to those with premium accounts. A few examples of restaurants that made the cut include: Saeki, a sushi restaurant in the Osaka area Yanagiya, an unagi…

Tabelog-top50

The Japanese equivalent of Yelp, Tabelog, announced today that its total number of restaurant reviews have surpassed five million. To celebrate this huge milestone, the review site has launched a campaign where 50 couples will be invited to 50 restaurants, all of which have reviews exceeding 4.0. Of all the restaurants listed on the site, 760,000 to be specific, only 0.1% meet this criteria.

Tabelog opened way back in March of 2005, and with 50 million monthly visitors it is now the go-to destination for many Japanese people looking for a great place to eat. According to the company, five million reviews add up to roughly 2.3 billion Japanese characters. To understand how impressive this number is, it would take about 13.5 years to read it all out loud, and it would take a daily newspaper 25.2 years to publish as much.

The special landing page that Tablog has created for its campaign is convenient even if you’re not going to participate. It showcases 50 top-notch restaurants in Japan by region, information normally restricted to those with premium accounts. A few examples of restaurants that made the cut include:

  • Saeki, a sushi restaurant in the Osaka area
  • Yanagiya, an unagi restaurant in Gifu prefecture
  • Apicius, a French restaurant in Ginza

If you’d like to give it a browse, you can view the selected restaurants from your computer or from your smartphone.

How to search for the best places to eat in Japan

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If you’re looking for places to eat here in Japan, there more than a few options available to help you in your search. Tabelog, a Japanese restaurant review site (much like Yelp) is one, and its rival Gurunavi is another popular option. But over the years an abundance of alternatives have emerged to challenge these two leading services. I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at just a few. Retty is a popular mobile service, where you can get restaurant recommendations from your online friends. Readers may recall that we previously featured it leading up to the recent CNet Japan Awards. On mobile, you can also look to location-based apps like Tab that suggest nearby points of interest, including restaurants. Another interesting option is through customer relations platforms like Kanban Musume (roughly translates as ‘store representative girl’) which lets consumers communicate with store staff online. By becoming a regular at restaurants, people receive exclusive offers as a bonus. Although the name suggests female staff, Kanban Musume includes staff of both genders. Moving on to other services, a new website called ‘Kono-ko-ni-aitai’ (meaning ‘I want to see her’ ) recently launched. According to the site, male users can…

Foodservices

If you’re looking for places to eat here in Japan, there more than a few options available to help you in your search. Tabelog, a Japanese restaurant review site (much like Yelp) is one, and its rival Gurunavi is another popular option. But over the years an abundance of alternatives have emerged to challenge these two leading services. I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at just a few.

Retty is a popular mobile service, where you can get restaurant recommendations from your online friends. Readers may recall that we previously featured it leading up to the recent CNet Japan Awards. On mobile, you can also look to location-based apps like Tab that suggest nearby points of interest, including restaurants.

map view on Retty
map view on Retty

Another interesting option is through customer relations platforms like Kanban Musume (roughly translates as ‘store representative girl’) which lets consumers communicate with store staff online. By becoming a regular at restaurants, people receive exclusive offers as a bonus. Although the name suggests female staff, Kanban Musume includes staff of both genders.

Moving on to other services, a new website called ‘Kono-ko-ni-aitai’ (meaning ‘I want to see her’ ) recently launched. According to the site, male users can look through photos of female staff at various establishments to find where they’d like to go.

Now this could be for restaurants, hair/esthetic salons, or even night clubs. The site was only launched this past week, so there’s not much data registered at this point. If you want to promote your store, you can add up to three staff registrations for free.

Other ways to discovering new places to eat include websites like Meshitomo, Social Lunch or Coffee Meeting. These websites are built to provide working people or job-seeking students a chance to connect with each other through casual lunches or dinners. While the purposes of these websites are more social, they may also be an interesting way to discover new places to eat and drink.

With so much information out there, it’s good to have so many options to turn to besides just Google. If you’re hungry, these are just a few ways that you can find new and interesting discoveries. If you know of others, let us know in the comments!

Japan-based restaurant finder app Retty raises $3.2M

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Retty, the startup behind the restaurant finder app of the same name, announced today that it has raised 330 million yen (approximately $3.2 million) in a series B round from Itochu Ventures, Mizuho Capital, and other investors. Prior to this round, the company raised $22 million yen ($285,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and an angel investor back in August of 2011, and 100 million yen ($1.2 million) from Gree Ventures, NTT Investment Partners, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital back in October of 2012. Our readers may recall the app surpassed 1 million monthly unique visitors back in October. The app renewed its interface back in its interface back in August, which has helped spur user growth to almost twice its previous rate. But Retty still has a huge obstacle to overcome. Its competitor Tabelog has 25.77 million desktop users, 22.97 million users on mobile, and a surprisingly 1.14 billion unique page views in a month [1]. It will be interesting to see how Retty will position itself in this race. We’ll explore the company’s future plans in an upcoming chat with CEO Kazuya Takeda. So please stay tuned! This is according to the announcement from…

retty-featured

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Retty, the startup behind the restaurant finder app of the same name, announced today that it has raised 330 million yen (approximately $3.2 million) in a series B round from Itochu Ventures, Mizuho Capital, and other investors. Prior to this round, the company raised $22 million yen ($285,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and an angel investor back in August of 2011, and 100 million yen ($1.2 million) from Gree Ventures, NTT Investment Partners, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital back in October of 2012.

Our readers may recall the app surpassed 1 million monthly unique visitors back in October. The app renewed its interface back in its interface back in August, which has helped spur user growth to almost twice its previous rate.

But Retty still has a huge obstacle to overcome. Its competitor Tabelog has 25.77 million desktop users, 22.97 million users on mobile, and a surprisingly 1.14 billion unique page views in a month [1].

It will be interesting to see how Retty will position itself in this race. We’ll explore the company’s future plans in an upcoming chat with CEO Kazuya Takeda. So please stay tuned!


  1. This is according to the announcement from Tabelog’s parent company Kakaku.com. As of October 2013.

Japanese restaurant review site sees its premium membership soar

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It was almost three years ago that Japanese food review portal Tabelog went premium. That was back in September of 2010, and since then it has made some progress in gathering paid users. Kakaku.com, the company behind Tabelog, has just announced that the number of premium members now exceeds 250,000, as of July 28th. The total number of monthly users is over 46 million, and page views are over one billion, as of June 2013. With a monthly fee of 315 yen (or about $3.20), premium members can enjoy additional features such as: Sorting or filtering by preferences Coupons with discounts of 20% to 100% A GPS-enabled feature that finds you nearby restaurants Ranking sorted by age and gender An ad-free version of the mobile app Tabelog launched way back in March of 2005, taking about five years to release its premium version – which at the time they did not handle very well. The change was very sudden and the site forced constraints in usage of exisiting features. It was so bad at one point that the almost all of over 440 app reviews submitted were one star ratings. The biggest complaint from the users was the restriction in…

Tabelog-premium-members

It was almost three years ago that Japanese food review portal Tabelog went premium. That was back in September of 2010, and since then it has made some progress in gathering paid users. Kakaku.com, the company behind Tabelog, has just announced that the number of premium members now exceeds 250,000, as of July 28th. The total number of monthly users is over 46 million, and page views are over one billion, as of June 2013. With a monthly fee of 315 yen (or about $3.20), premium members can enjoy additional features such as:

  • Sorting or filtering by preferences
  • Coupons with discounts of 20% to 100%
  • A GPS-enabled feature that finds you nearby restaurants
  • Ranking sorted by age and gender
  • An ad-free version of the mobile app

Tabelog launched way back in March of 2005, taking about five years to release its premium version – which at the time they did not handle very well. The change was very sudden and the site forced constraints in usage of exisiting features. It was so bad at one point that the almost all of over 440 app reviews submitted were one star ratings. The biggest complaint from the users was the restriction in using sorting features.

tabelog
Tabelog

But looking at the gradual increase in the number of premium members, people seem to have finally accepted it now, and they continue to use the site. Honestly, there aren’t many good enough alternatives out there.

But the lessons to be learned here are very simple. Don’t make a sudden change without taking the time to educate users and adjust their expectations. Premium accounts should offer additional services, and not cripple something that was already available. Although Japanese people are relatively used to micropayments on mobile, when it comes to smartphone apps where free or one-time purchases are more common, they are more unwilling to pay monthly fees.

Tabelog has found other ways to monetize the site too. In addition to premium memberships, the company also operates an equivalent of OpenTable called Cena that allows users to easily make restaurant reservations. It’s likely that they take a cut when reservations are made, just like they do for when a reservation phone call is made through Tabelog restaurant page.

Despite incidents in the past, Tabelog is considered one of the most successful services in Japan, and it will be interesting to see their future attempts in boosting the number of premium members.

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.

Japanese restaurant site explains tough sushi terms in a handy graphic

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See the full infographic on Gurunavi Here on SD Japan, we’ve written a few articles about how tech has been used to make sushi restaurants more efficient. There was even a very unusual drone helicopter sushi in London being used for marketing purposes. Speaking of marketing, today Gurunavi (sort of Japan’s answer to Yelp) released an infographic about the many sushi-related terms used at restaurants. Even though sushi is both a casual and more formal dinner option in Japan, there are many terms that people may not be familiar with or maybe they misunderstand them. Gurunavi released this infographic to promote a better understanding of the traditional cuisine (and likely for some self-promotion too!). ‘Gari’ (pink ginger on the side) or ‘Neta’ (ingredient) are common words heard at sushi restaurants, but the infographic dives into even more advanced terms like ‘Nigemono’ (I didn’t know this one, but it means cost-efficient ingredient) and ‘Debana’ (tea served at the beginning of meal). The term ‘murasaki’, which usually refers to the color purple, is apparently used to describe soy sauce at sushi restaurants. Bookmark this infographic to show off to your friends how much you know about sushi. Gurunavi was founded way back…

Sushiterm-infographic-gurunaviSee the full infographic on Gurunavi

Here on SD Japan, we’ve written a few articles about how tech has been used to make sushi restaurants more efficient. There was even a very unusual drone helicopter sushi in London being used for marketing purposes.

Speaking of marketing, today Gurunavi (sort of Japan’s answer to Yelp) released an infographic about the many sushi-related terms used at restaurants. Even though sushi is both a casual and more formal dinner option in Japan, there are many terms that people may not be familiar with or maybe they misunderstand them. Gurunavi released this infographic to promote a better understanding of the traditional cuisine (and likely for some self-promotion too!).

‘Gari’ (pink ginger on the side) or ‘Neta’ (ingredient) are common words heard at sushi restaurants, but the infographic dives into even more advanced terms like ‘Nigemono’ (I didn’t know this one, but it means cost-efficient ingredient) and ‘Debana’ (tea served at the beginning of meal). The term ‘murasaki’, which usually refers to the color purple, is apparently used to describe soy sauce at sushi restaurants. Bookmark this infographic to show off to your friends how much you know about sushi.

Gurunavi was founded way back in 1989 and went public in 2008 as a local restaurant portal and search engine. The site’s direct competitor is Tabelog, which was launched in 2005. Tabelog’s parent company is Kakaku.com, and they recently launched a version of its site for New York in March of this year. The main difference between the two competitors is that Gurunavi is more store-oriented, providing exclusive coupons for special occasions or drinking parties. In contrast, Tabelog’s strength is its consumer-generated restaurant reviews.

Update: Here’s an awesome translation of the graphic from reader David. Pretty awesome!