Asiajin

After 2 years of development, a new communication service called Oshaberi TV went into Public Beta this month (Oshaberi means talkative in Japanese).

Oshaberi TV is not a TV station or program but a mix of a new technology reminiscent of Nico Nico Douga’s super-successful “chat over video feed” function and community/forum. Essentially, Oshaberi enables a group of users to simultaneously comment on TV programs in real time. The service requires a software download.

If you change the TV channel, the software will change the chat room as well and you can start new conversations with fellow Oshaberi users who are watching the same TV program.

The users are represented by customizable avatars and can also write comments with ASCII art, which Japanese web surfers know from the ultra-popular BBS 2chan and Nico Nico Douga.

However, Oshaberi only works with the Japanese digital TV 1-Seg, which means that international users are unfortunately fenced out. It’s a fascinating idea though: The fusion of TV programs and a real-time chatting/community function on one screen is quite an innovation, isn’t it?

Tags: Japan, New Service by Serkan Toto
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Packaged Software supplier Source Next will start selling their “USB Memory package” application from September 5th, 2008.

Under the “U memo series” brand, they will sell their anti-virus software, cell phone data sync tool, greeting cards utility, etc. in 1MB USB memory. The memory can be used as a regular USB memory.

It is explained that this move is needed because more note PC and UMPC(Ultra Mobile PC) are shipped without optical drive recently. On their plan, all packages will be provided only in USB memory version in future.

via Asahi Shimbin [J]

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Despite of Twitter’s founder Evan Williams’ unplesant, Mixi’s microblogging feature “Mixi Echo” one month trial is announced to be extended for “uncertain period”.

This feature was originally planned to be closed on September 1st 2008, however, because of “popular demand”, we decide to extend the period of service. The end date is undecided.

Mixi’s main social networking service is still in Beta after 4 years, 2 years from IPO. Beta or non-Beta seems not a matter for 15 million users, and they have been managing huge traffic quite well without big server trouble so far. Mixi Echo’s “tantative status” is Mixi’s another excuse in advance.

Tags: Japan, Service by Akky Akimoto
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Twitter Founder Evan Williams is visiting Tokyo. During his summer vacation a party was held among Japanese twitter fans and developers named “Eban Uiriamusu shi wo Kakomu Kai(A meeting to surround Mr. Evan Williams)”.

Evan Williams

He discussed with Japanse fans and developers for 90 minuites. Answering questions by questions.

These are couple questions made from Japanase fans. Here is one series of conversation.

Twitter user: I hit my follow limit. Now I need to use 2 accounts. Could you remove this limit?

Evan Williams: Can you read all twit you’re following? Do you remember all users you’re following?

Twitter user: No. But I really love twitter and enjoy it fully.

Evan Williams: Yes, I understand. But I think most of people is enough with that limit. To satisfy majority of the people we need to do something for them (to make the system stable).

Twitter user: …Ah…O.K. But I will pay a monthly charge if necessary. I can pay 500 yen (about 4.5 USD) per month.

Evan Williams: Well, we are not thinking to charge because we think it will cost more to charge. The amount will be earned by charging will be less than the cost to charge it. We have some ideas about monetizing and one of that is to charge for commercial users.

Twitter started Japanse service from April, 2008 after announcing a business tie-up with Digital Garage. According to the analysis made with Google Insights for Search, Japanese users have a hightest interest in the world.

Twitter and Digital Garage are thinking by optimizing to Japanese mobile browsers Twitter usage can be boosted more. Several companies starting Twitter clone services in Japan and even Mixi, the largest SNS in Japan introduced Twitter clone function for trial named “Mixi Minna no Echo“. CNET Japan interviewd to Evan Williams how he think about it and he answered “We’re not pleased about it“.

See Also:

Party announcement on Twitter Japan official blog [J]

Party photos by digitalbear

Meeting Report 1, 2, 3, 4 [J]

Tags: Event Report, Japan, Person by Hiroumi Mitani
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[NB: Sound is on by default]

Samurai Weapon is a bilingual(Japanese/English) blog widget provided by a big Japanese game vendor Koei, as a promotion of their new Nintendo DS game “Kunitori Zunou Battle/Nobunaga no Yabou” (Strategic Battle/Nobunaga’s Ambition).

On the widget, Samurai Warrior with his full armors will get irritated by your mouse touch. He will slash your cursor by his sword.

If you keep bothering him, he will destroy the whole page on the browser with invoking random operations, flaming arrow, flooding, 3 times gun fire, and canon attack.

The widget itself seems to require big data download so broadband access may be better to let him barsark.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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