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
1 Comment »

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
No Comments »

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
No Comments »

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
2 Comments »

[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
5 Comments »

It sounds like a joke, but the Japanese company “Web2.0, Inc.” turns out to be in deadpool in coming September 2008.

Web2.0 Inc. was established by Digital Garage, the nation leading event-ticket seller company Pia and the No.1 online price comparison service Kakaku.com on November 15th 2005 and offers Social Bookmark service PingKing. With the stronger competitors like Hatena Bookmark, livedoor Clip, Buzzurl and Yahoo! Bookmarks, PingKing could not take off and is waiting its close at the end of this month.

Apparently, naming of the company expected search engine optimization and hoped the word “Web2.0″ success in Japan, however, the search results of Web2.0, Inc is 5th on Yahoo! Japan, 13th on Google (Japanese). “Web2.0″ in Japan on Google Trends shows the word itself is less searched recently.

See Also:

Digital Garage’s release : notice about subsidiary dissolution and liquidation [J, pdf]

Tags: Company, Japan by Akky Akimoto
2 Comments »

In English Web, No.1 Google tries to erode Wikipedia’s territory by Knol. In Japan, interestingly, the champion portal Yahoo! Japan starts wiki based annotation service “Editable Related Info Area”(Kanren Johou Eria [J]) on their news site annex Yahoo! Japan News Topics.

Here is the topic of “Beijin Olympic 2008″ screenshot. You can see more than half of the page is occupied this user-generated contents. The section is began with disclaimer text “The following are guided-contents created by media staffs and readers.”

In this Olympic topic case, many links are sorted out in categories,

• Olympic official sites
• Olympic pages on other media
• Medal-winners’ profiles and movies
• Opening Celemony
• Timetable
• Movies explaining each sports
• Illustrations
• Japan’s records in past olympics
• Athletes/organizations/media reporters’ weblogs
• Photos
• Arenas information
• Newspaper in printable PDF
• Poll results
• Some RSS feeds from affiliated media
• Social Networks for sports fans on affiliated media

Many of them are links to other contents on Yahoo! Japan, but it is not necessary Yahoo! Japan showing partiality to themselves, as Yahoo! Japan really holds a lot of contents in Japanese websphere.

As you notice, this user-generated section is oriented not for “Definition” but for making “Reference” information, if you compare with Wikipedia and Google Knol. Keywords’ definition part is not opened to outside editors.

These reference info have been there before, but they were edited only by Yahoo! Japan staff. Now, Yahoo! Japan users can apply to become the editor. There is a online exam to be the editor. They are not paid for contributions but there seem already many user editors seen on history pages.

See Also:

Yahoo! Japan press release - Added editable “related info area” on “Yahoo! News Topics” [J]

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
2 Comments »

Mobage Town, the Japan’s largest mobile social networking service(SNS) launched their “PC version” website on July 24th 2008.

Mobage Town has made a totally new field “Cellularphone Social Network based on free games” and that success called many followers like GREE mobile, Puchige(Petit Game) Friends, Daishugou NEO, etc.

PC SNS leader Mixi, has been providing their mobile version for years, and now gives favorable treatment to mobile phone users for easier registration process by utilizing traceable subscriber ID given to each cellularphone. Now two giants are ready to make inroads into each other’s main field.

Their PC version has very strange design unless you are familiar with its original cellular phone version. Even on PC browser, it is trying to keep the same style, proportion with its mobile vesion. Your PC browser is taller so less scroll needed, but basically they look same.

Here is the Mobage Town PC’s top page,

Original menus, icons, emoji (graphical letters) are reproduced. It is like a cellularphone emulator. Some features are not available, such like news, ringertone and the biggest one, Flash games. At this point, the PC site is provided for communication - to read (ketai-novels, friends’ diaries, bbs) and write the same contents with mobile. Not all Mobage-Town users are mobile-only, nor mobile-preferred, this PC site will help older generation who likes PC keyboard more to use the service.

See Also:

DeNA’s announcement for PC site closed-beta on July 2nd 2008 [J, pdf]

Official Launch announcement on Mobage Town PC [J]

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
No Comments »

Open Web Asia ‘08 conference has been announced to be held on 14th October 2008 in Seoul, Korea.

後ろに日本語の案内があります。

—

“The first pan-Asia web technology event bringing together executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from throughout Asia”

October 14 2008, Sheraton Grande Walkerhill, Seoul, Korea
in association with the 9th World Knowledge Forum

Open Web Asia ‘08 marks the birth of a new conference that will be the first truly pan-Asia web technology event. Top technology executives, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists from throughout Asia will gather for this premier event to be hosted in Seoul, Korea in its inaugural year.

The event is organized by members of the Open Web Asia Workgroup and other prominent entrepreneurs, thinkers, and bloggers from within the Asian web industry. It was spurred by a desire to create a high quality, informative and practical technology conference focused on the Asian internet industry. To date this has been lacking.

Open Web Asia will be held in association with the World Knowledge Forum (WKF). The WKF has established itself as one of the most prestigious conferences in Asia with speakers and attendees such as Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Jack Welch, Alan Greenspan, Michael Dell, and Paul Wolfowitz.

The theme of the 2008 conference is ‘The Social Web’. Socialization has been a game changing development in the internet industry and the social web is an area where Asia has its own strength and vibrancy. Asian countries have a distinct internet cultures and market players, so informative and educational cross-country comparisons can be made.

The one day conference will be divided into four sessions focusing on the following key areas: Insights and Best Practices, Innovations in Asia; Collaboration - An Introduction to Asia’s Social Web; and East Meets West - The challenges of Internationalization To and From Asia. The topics were chosen as a platform for information, education and debate.

Confirmed speakers include some of the most experienced and knowledgeable people from the Asian internet industry and a selection of business leaders and thinkers from outside the region.

Kevin Day (CEO, Comsenz) (China)
Arthur Chang (VP of Global Sales, Alibaba) (China)
Yongjoon Hyoung (CEO of StoryBlender & Founder of Cyworld) (Korea)
Yongseok Jang (Senior Director, eBay Asia Pacific) (Korea)
Yozo Kaneko (Director and COO of ngi group, inc.) (Japan)
James W. Kim (CEO of Yahoo!’s Korea Region) (Korea)
Jimmy Kim (Executive Vice President, Nexon Corp.) (Korea)
Loic Le Meur (CEO, Seesmic) (USA)
Ram Lee (Head of Communities, NHN Corporation (Naver)) (Korea)
Kent Lindstrom (Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Friendster) (USA)
Shusaku Maruko (General Manager, Corporate Strategy Department, Felica) (Japan)
Jean K. Min (Communications Director, Ohmynews) (Korea)
Akio Tanaka (Partner, Infinity Ventures) (Japan)
Bill Wang (VP of Overseas Business, Perfect World) (China)
Andreas Weigend (Consultant & Lecturer; Former Chief Scientist of Amazon) (USA)
Kwan Yoon (Partner, Bluerun Ventures) (USA)

This premier conference will offer web professionals from inside Asia and those from outside with an eye on the Asian web market an opportunity to learn, network and create business connections that will benefit both the regional and global internet industry.
For more information and registration
please visit www.openwebasia.com

IMAGES
The Open Web Asia logo is available for media use at http://www.openwebasia.com/downloads/
SPONSORSHIP
A limited number of sponsorship packages are available. For details, please contact sponsor@openwebasia.com
REFERENCE
World Knowledge Forum                 http://www.wkforum.org
The World Knowledge Forum is an independent organization committed to promoting knowledge-driven society and creating balanced global prosperity. Incorporated as a foundation in 2000, and based in Seoul, Korea, the World Knowledge Forum is non-profit.
The Open Web Asia Workgroup         http://www.openweb.asia
The Open Web Asia Workgroup is a network of premium blogs focus on Asian Web industry. These sites build efficient channels between Asia web and global industry, and also enhance the inter-communication of local Internet markets.

—

ニュースリリースタイトル： 世界初、アジア各国が中心となるウェブテクノロジー国際会議が開催されます。

Open Web Asia Conference ‘08

2008年10月14日、アジアのインターネット企業経営者やベンチャーキャピタリストが集まる国際会議「Open Web Asia Conference ‘08」がソウルのシェラトングランデウォーカーヒルホテルで初めて開催されます。今年度はWorld Knowledge Forumとの共同開催となります。

Open Web Asia ‘08は、初めてのアジア各国をカバーするウェブテクノロジーの国際会議です。トップクラスの経営者、起業家、ベンチャーキャピタリストが、初年度の開催地であるソウルに集結します。

本会議は、Open Web Asia Workgroup及びアジアの有力な起業家やブロガーによって主催されています。アジアのインターネット業界が一堂に会する国際会議を開催したいとの強い熱意を持って各国から主催者が集まりました。

今年度のOpen Web Asiaは、World Knowledge Forum (WKF)との共同開催となります。WKFは、アジアで最も有力な国際会議の一つで、これまでにビル・ゲイツ、コリン・パウエル、ジャック・ウェルチ、アラン・グリーンスパン、マイケル・デルら、一流の講演者が参加しています。

本会議の今年度のテーマは、「The Social Web」です。インターネット産業において、ソーシャル・ウェブは世界を変えるほどの革新的技術であり、またアジアが大きな存在感と躍動感を持っている分野でもあります。アジア各国には、独自のインターネット文化と、各国市場を代表する強力な企業があり、それらを比較することは非常に有意義であると考えます。

会議では、以下の４つのセッションが行われます。

・Insights and Best Practices
・Innovations in Asia
・Collaboration - An Introduction to Asia’s Social Web
・East Meets West - The challenges of Internationalization To and From Asia

現在、予定されている講演者は以下の通りです。

・Kevin Day (CEO, Comsenz) (China)
・Arthur Chang (VP of Global Sales, Alibaba) (China)
・Yongjoon Hyoung (CEO of StoryBlender & Founder of Cyworld) (Korea)
・Yongseok Jang (Senior Director, eBay Asia Pacific) (Korea)
・Yozo Kaneko (Director and COO of ngi group, inc.) (Japan)
・James W. Kim (CEO of Yahoo!’s Korea Region) (Korea)
・Jimmy Kim (Executive Vice President, Nexon Corp.) (Korea)
・Loic Le Meur (CEO, Seesmic) (USA)
・Ram Lee (Head of Communities, NHN Corporation (Naver)) (Korea)
・Kent Lindstrom (Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Friendster) (USA)
・Shusaku Maruko (General Manager, Corporate Strategy Department, Felica) (Japan)
・Jean K. Min (Communications Director, Ohmynews) (Korea)
・Akio Tanaka (Partner, Infinity Ventures) (Japan)
・Bill Wang (VP of Overseas Business, Perfect World) (China)
・Andreas Weigend (Consultant & Lecturer; Former Chief Scientist of Amazon) (USA)
・Kwan Yoon (Partner, Bluerun Ventures) (USA)

Open Web Asiaが、日本のインターネット業界の皆様に、アジアと世界との人脈を作り、最新事例を学ぶ機会をご提供します。

詳しい情報はウェブサイト(http://www.openwebasia.com)をご覧ください。

発表日: 2008年8月14日
お問い合わせ先: 新井俊一 (openwebasia@mellowtone.co.jp)

—
・ロゴ (http://www.openwebasia.com/downloads/)

誌面に掲載されるOpen Web Asiaのロゴは上記URLから取得して頂けます。

・スポンサー

当会議のスポンサー様およびメディアスポンサー様を若干名募集しております。詳しくは sponsor@openwebasia.com までご連絡ください。

・World Knowledge Forum (http://www.wkforum.org)

World Knowledge Forumは、独立した委員会により運営される、知識社会と均衡の取れた世界の発展を目的とする組織です。2000年に韓国で非営利の財団として発足しました。

・The Open Web Asia Workgroup (http://www.openweb.asia)

Open Web Asia Workgroupは、アジアのウェブ業界における有力なブログが集まったブログネットワークです。これらのブログは、世界とアジアをつなぐ架け橋として、またアジア各国間の架け橋として機能しています。

Tags: Announcement, Community, Japan, Korea by Shunichi Arai
2 Comments »

Mixi has released “mixi OpenID” API to public users.

It enables developers to use mixi ID for authentication. Also the API has “my mixi authentication” and “community authentication” features. Developers must follows OpenID Authentication 2.0 standard.

Also it enables mixi users to use their ID on many existing websites which accept OpenID.

“my mixi” is a term which means a friend of a user. This feature enables developers to authenticate that a user is a friend of another user.

Community authentication enables developers to confirm that a user is a member of a community.

Mixi was reluctant to release API because they are anxious for security issues. Finally they started to provide API to users. What’s their next move?

Tags: Japan by Shunichi Arai
No Comments »