The Tokyo-based mobile app start-up YouMind[J] launched last Friday the free mobile service called Hitomebo[J], which allows you to record where and when you have seen cute girls or handsome boys and fallen in love, just only with a GPS-compatible mobile phone.

One of the the company's directors experienced to see a cute girl in his commute, but he was too shy to hit on her in a crowded train. His extreme regret led to the birth of the company's innovation. CEO Kentaro Takeda emphasizes it is not a dating site, probably for preventing it from being seen as the object to which the dating site regulation act is applied (see this Shunichi Arai's article for the act). In case that someone reports to have witnessed you as a lover candidate, the system can identify both sides by the time and location attributes reported, and both of you will be notified so and have ways to get in touch each other. When the system detects the second guy beside a girl having the same attribute to yours, it will warn you of a rival's presence.

The company intends to earn revenue from ads to be placed in the e-mail newsletter to the registered users, as well as derivative services based on the geographical statistics accumulated from the user behaviors collected. It is expected to engage more than 5,000 male and female users in the highly populated Tokyo area.

YouMind is also well known for developing the mobile game app[J] featuring Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. It is headquartered in the fashionably sophisticated town of Daikanyama, which is located near Shibuya and Ebisu where many tech start-up companies are concentrated.

The name of Hitomebo comes from Hitomebore, meaning "falling in love at first sight" in Japanese, which is also used for branding a popular rice cultivar[J] in the country.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Company, Japan, New Service by Masaru IKEDA
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"Terebi-ban (TV version) Yahoo! Japan" is a new variation of Yahoo! Japan for home TV browsers.

Left side-bar menu has only 7 items, news, weather, sports, astrology, TV programme, cooking recipe and Chiebukuro (Yahoo! Answers Japanese version). The content is only 8 news headlines, 1 news with photo and 2 hot keywords. It is so simple if you compare it with the original Yahoo! Japan top page.

Most of top-listed categories and news are, however, do not provide TV version at this point. Besides top page, I could confirm search top,

and search results page,

are customized pages for this TV version.

According to their release note, this TV version is designed for big screen with fewer button remote control, and the filtering for children is set on by default for home use.

Many of big Japanese TV vendors, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi, give comments on the Yahoo! Japan's release and says that they have been working on standardization of TV oriented HTML set, and this TV version of Yahoo! Japan is well supported of those television set.

[note] TV version of Yahoo! Japan is not available for PC browser unless you change your user agent appropriately. I did not confirm if you can see it from outside of Japan.

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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Yahoo Japan[J] announced Tuesday it would buy 51% stake in Gyao[J] which is the free broadband video streaming service and has been wholly owned by Japan's largest cable music broadcaster USEN.   Yahoo Japan will buy Gyao's 4,998 shares for USD5.3M, and merge Gyao and Yahoo Douga (Yahoo Japan's free video streaming service) together this coming fall.

According to the briefing made by the two heads of Yahoo Japan and USEN, both video services stuck on the problem of requiring complicated tasks and high costs to clear copyright issues before having the contents published on their sites, in contrast to the high rise of CGM (consumer generated media) or UGC (user generated contents) based video sharing sites like YouTube and Nico Nico Douga[J] where the engaged users may upload videos without copyright consciousness.   By merging their background systems as well as the service brand, their new system is expected to require lower operation cost than ever.

Yahoo Japan also announced Monday to have set up its new portal entrance especially designed for the TV sets having the Internet connectivity.   The company's CEO Masahiro Inoue expected the video service to gain revenue in the synergy with such new service lineups.

On the other hand, the broadband video service ShowTime[J], providing PPV and paid subscription based viewing, was a 50-50 joint venture co-found by USEN and Rakuten in 2001.   At the end of last February, USEN sold their shares of ShowTime to the other partner for USD17.8M, now it's fully owned by Rakuten.   ShowTime has 60,000 titles and 1.1M users as of this writing.

Since USEN declared the deficit of USD538M in the business year ending last August, and it has been expected to announce more restructuring plans to improve the business.

Tags: Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Japan's largest cellphone career, NTT DoCoMo announced it has agreed to  buy 51% stake for approx. USD310M in the country's 4th largest TV infomercial company based in Nagoya, Oak Lawn Marketing(OLM).

OLM was co-founded by a Chicagoese and university graduate who visited Nagoya in 1989.   The company is best known for selling a German stain remover "DiDi Seven" and an exercise program DVD title "Billy's Bootcamp".   The deal is the mobile carrier's attempt to diversify revenue sources for developing a new mobile commerce business of its own.

By the way, NTT DoCoMo also unveiled recently it would start the "1-seg" TV broadcasting service next month, which is specifically designed for its subscribers' handsets and will be co-managed with the Tokyo-based independent music company Avex.

Tags: Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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The Japanese word processing software pioneer, Just Systems announced today it would increase the capital by allocating new shares to the Osaka-based sensor manufacturer Keyence Corporation.   Keyence plans to buy 43.96% stake in Just Systems, and it worths USD45M.

After a full chase with the other word processing softwares like Microsoft Word, Just Systems' money-making product Ichitaro could no longer keep its sales trend, and the company were forced to develop many kinds of new business, new softwares and new services.   Unfortunately, no attempt has grown up enough to save the company.

According to the company's report for the latest fiscal period, Just Systems generates USD1.42B revenue, USD11M net loss, USD14M operating loss and USD11M ordinary loss.

Just Systems was founded in 1996 by Mr. & Mrs. Ukigawa.   It has been considered as the herald of Japanese IT ventures, and is listed on Jasdaq Securities Exchange.

See Also:

• CEO Ukigawa's Announcement: Just Systems has made agreement for capital and business partnership with Keyence Corporation [J]

Tags: Company, Japan by Masaru IKEDA
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