Agile Media Network, a Shibuya-based start-up company providing Japanese A-list bloggers with ad revenue opportunities and Asiajin’s adviser Motohiko Tokuriki[J] serves as the president of, plans to hold an event called WISH2009[J] on Friday evening next week. Mr. Tokuriki attended TedxTokyo last May, and he was highly inspired by the event and turned to think of how important a live event is for sharing knowledge and experience in the Internet community.
In the world facing financial crisis and the dot-com bubble collapse, now is the hard time for Internet business start-ups. They’ve given birth to a number of interesting apps and useful services, however they are still in difficulty to gain the population of users. Tokuriki says, the event aims at giving them opportunities to present and pushing on their new apps and services which are yet little known but high potential.
Intended presenters:
Ubiquitous Project, Keio University SFC (led by Dr. Masa Inakage)
A team of 10 laboratories of Keio University SFC jointly developed a number of digitized contents and media derived from our daily utilities, and also invented a platform allowing them to develop ubiquitous products in a more efficient way. (E/J intro PDF to the project)
Conit (led by Kentaro Hashimoto)
A Shibuya-based tech start-up and iPhone/iPod touch app developer unveils its brand new line-up following Samurai Chess, Melody Bell and Tapnext.
Sidefeed (led by Yoski Akamatsu[J])
A Tokyo-based RSS-feed-oriented system integration company combined web technologies with real toys usually surrounding us. (Read other Asiajin stories tagged with this company)
San San[J]
The company provides consultation services in CRM(customer relationship management) and SFA(salesforce automation) business segments, specifically by focusing on delivering solutions to arrange information collected by business cards being exchanged everyday. (Read other Asiajin stories tagged with this company)
SonyBank[J] provides various Internet banking services without real branch nor its own teller machine. The company was founded by Sony’s financial service unit almost eight and half years ago.
Gen Taguchi[J], Founder of 100shiki[J] a.k.a. “dot-com of the day”
100shiki.com introduces a good and new service for a day. Mr. Taguchi is a forward-looking guy on tech industry as well as one of the best-known lifehackers. He tells us where the next web trends are going to.
Dressphile Online Closet[J]
For city dwellers having no affordable space at home to keep unseasonable clothes, you’re allowed to ask them on the web to pick up unnecessary pieces and to keep each piece of them for an approximate monthly cost of three dollars.
Nissan Carwings[J]
Carwings is an intelligent car navigation system having Internet connectivity via cellphone data network. By talking on the system with a customer representative who is standing-by at Nissan’s service center, it makes you easier to set a destination and to find a town guide for the destination as well.
User Local[J] (led by Masao Ito[J], he founded Japan’s most popular bulletin board site for job hunting students[J], and handed it over to Japan’s e-commerce giant Rakuten. He got a degree from Waseda University Graduate School)
A tech start-up incubated from Waseda University developed several services focusing on web access statistics and analysis. (Read other Asiajin stories tagged with this company)
Lang-8[J] (led by Youyou Ki)
A Kyoto-based tech start-up developed a language-learning service by exchanging interaction with native speakers on the web. Asiajin’s Hiroumi Mitani wrote this for more details. (Read other Asiajin stories tagged with this company)
The event has also an another nomination category[J] which allows you to recommend your favorite from web services recently introduced and to vote for it (open until the end of Wednesday, August 12th). Asiajin’s founder Akky Akimoto also entried his recent work called Yondayo![J], which allows you to publicize a list of books you’ve read by posting a Twitter message and to share its review with other avid readers.
- Event sponsors: SonyBank[J] and Livedoor[J]
- Special thanks: Nikon and Nissan Carwings[J]
- Media sponsors: Nikkei BP Net, Impress Watch[J], IT Media News[J], CNET Japan[J], Asahi.com, Mainichi.jp, Gizmodo Japan[J], TechCrunch Japan[J], Blog People[J], Mixi[J] and Asiajin
Several A-list tech bloggers and IT media journalists are appointed to serve as the judges for the event’s best awards.
Ketsudan Potaufe, also known as Japanese Amanda Congdon, plans to bring you live streamcast from the venue. It’s available on August 21 from 7pm to 10pm J.S.T., which is 10am to 1pm U.T.C. on the same day. We will be able to put a direct link to the streamcast.
Masaru IKEDA