Q&A: What’s the Japanese equivalent of [enter foreign web service here]?

Posted on July 29th, 2009 by Serkan Toto

This is a reboot of a post I wrote back in July last year, listing up the Japanese equivalents of websites that are popular in the US and Europe.

For example, Japanese people don't know Ebay but auction their stuff off on Yahoo Japan Auctions, get in touch with friends via Mixi instead of Facebook etc. etc.

I linked to the English versions whenever possible (see the [ENG] mark).

Leave a comment if you want to know more or think one of these attributions is off.

I) General web services

What is the Japanese equivalent of Tripadvisor?
4Travel.

Google?
Yahoo! Japan.

Wikipedia?
Wikipedia Japan.

Facebook?
Mixi.

Flickr?
Yahoo! Japan Photos.

Digg?
Minna no Topics (Everyone's topics/closed).

LinkedIn?
No equivalent (many business social networks failed in Japan - look here for a list).

Twitter?
Twitter Japan.

Youtube?
Nico Nico Douga.

Amazon?
Rakuten and Amazon Japan

delicio.us?
Hatena Bookmark. [ENG]

dooyoo (price comparison engine)?
Kakaku.com.

Netflix?
Posren.

Craigslist?
No equivalent (there is no culture for classifieds in Japan, which means an instant success for a "Japanese Craigslist" is next to impossible to achieve).

imdb (Internet Movie Database)?
Nihon Eiga Database (Japan Movie Database).

Wall Street Journal Online?
Nikkei Online. [ENG]

monster.com?
Rikunavi.

Ebay?
Yahoo! Japan Auctions.

Alexa?
Pathtraq.

Hulu?
acTVila.

4chan?
Futaba (the original).

last.fm?
Mixi Music (registration required/will be turned off soon).

Technorati?
Kizasi.

Yahoo! Answers?
Oshiete!goo and Yahoo! Chiebukuro.

Zynga?
Hangame Japan. GREE and Mobage-town on cell phones.

II) Blogs

What is the Japanese equivalent of Techcrunch?
No equivalent. TechCrunch Japan is beginning to publish original articles.

the Huffington Post?
Agora.

tmz.com?
Zakzak.

Boing Boing?
Zaeega.

Gizmodo?
Gizmodo Japan.

Engadget?
Engadget Japanese.

III) Web tools and software:

What is the Japanese equivalent of Gmail?
Yahoo! Japan Mail.

Blogger?
FC2.

iTunes?
iTunes Japan (Lismo for mobile downloads which accounted for 90% of all music downloads in 2007 in Japan).

BitTorrent?
Share. (see info on Asiajin)

Opera?
Sleipnir [ENG] and Lunascape [ENG].

IV) Web Companies

What is the Japanese equivalent of Federated Media?
Agile Media Network. [ENG]

Admob?
Cirius. [ENG]

In case you want to know more, please add a comment.

Author Information  Dr. Serkan Toto is a German based in Tokyo. Like us, he is passionate about introducing Japanese IT to the rest of the world. Full-time, Serkan works as an independent web industry consultant for hedge funds, venture capital companies and start-ups worldwide. He is also a writer for mega tech blog network TechCrunch, covering Japan-related technology and web trends. This is Serkan's website. Follow Serkan on Twitter here.

Tags: Japan // 6 Comments »

  • http://koreacrunch.com/archive/whats-the-korean-equivalent-of-enter-foreign-web-service KoreaCrunch

    Asiajin updatedJapanese equivalent of western web services. You may know Japan and Korean are very different from western. It’s different between Japan and Korea too. I listed up them to compare with Japan and western. Leave a comment if you want to know more or think one of these attributions is off.

  • http://simpli-city.blogspot.com/2009/08/links-for-sunday-morning_09.html Simplicity

    ce. TV Contestants: Tired, Tipsy and Pushed to Brink How Different Groups Spend Their Day – Interactive Graphic The American Time Use Survey asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day. Here is how people over age 15 spent their time in 2008.What’s the Japanese equivalent of [enter foreign web service here]?and What’s the Korean equivalent of Western web service?

  • http://foxhsiao.blogspot.com/2009/08/13q-whats-taiwanese-equivalent-of-enter.html fOx’s Vault 101: 第13問：西方的眾多網路服務，對應到日、韓、台網路服務會是哪些呢？(Q&A: What’s the Taiwanese equivalent of [enter foreign web service here]?)

    [...] 此篇是整理Asiajin裡的(這篇)，以及KoreaCrunch裡的(這篇)，加上台灣的部份而成，台灣的部份，以我主觀在Alexa以及ARO的印象為準，台灣部份如果有不足的，請各位指教後再行補上。韓國部份竊以為，Daum有點被過度強調了… [...]

  • Web2Asia
  • http://www.web2asia.com/2009/08/05/asian-equivalents-of-western-web-services-part-03-china/ Asian Equivalents of Western Web Services Part 03: China – Home

    [...] in the world: China. This post is in response to the overview started by Serkan Toto of Asiajin on Japanese equivalents and the follow-up by Channy Yun on Koreacrunch. Here is the response from Taiwan. General Web [...]

  • http://developer.cybozu.co.jp/akky/2009/08/post-aeab.html 秋元@サイボウズラボ・プログラマー・ブログ : 韓台中国の有力ウェブサービスリスト。英語サービスと比較して

    [...] アジアジンの方でセルカン・トトさん(TechCrunchの一連の日本関連記事でご存知の方も多いアジアジンのメンバー)が、「(西洋の)このサービスに対応する日本のウェブサービスは何?」という記・..を一年ぶりに更新しています。 [...]

  • http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/08/09/house-sharing/ Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » House sharing in Japan

    [...] might one find a room to sublet, or a subletter to live in one’s spare room in Japan? It has been pointed out that “there is no culture for classifieds in Japan, which means an instant success for a [...]

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