One of the most read Japanese business magazine (such like Forbes or Businessweek), Shuukan Daiyamondo(Weekly Diamond) January 23th 2010 issue,
featured Twitter as a special topic for 40 pages.

Both of the cover of the magazine and the first page of the featured section, thousands of Japanese Twitter user icons, which had been called for on Twitter by the magazine's Twitter account @diamondweekly, are used.

The title of the special coverage is "2010 nen Twitter no Tabi"(2010 A Twitter Odyssey).

That issue was said to be sold out on many book stores supported by hype on Japanese Twitter. Reprinted was announced [J].

As well as NHK's big coverage in October, appearing on the magazine shows that Twitter is penetrating into elders, over 40 years old, earning 6 digits (8 digits in Japanese yen), decision makers (according to the magazine's media sheet [J, pdf]).

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Although Amazon Kindle is possible to order from Japan, Kindle and its backend do not support Japanese font well yet. Support for Japanese publishers in Japanese are not prepared, too.

So, most Japanese people who currently own Kindle are gadget fans, English-savvy or for research purpose.

And some people see potential on the device and the platform. There are some self publishers put their Japanese novels as image files. If it has to be image for Japanese, maybe image contents are more familiar. Monochrome image contents popular for Japanese is... yes, manga cartoon.

Ume, a cartoonist unit of OZAWA Takahiro and SEO Asako [J], known by "Giga-Tokyo Toybox series", experimentally published their short manga "Aozora Finder Rock", which probably is the first Japanese manga in Japanese for Japanese readers on Kindle Store for $2.99.

It is pity that it costs $4.99 from Japan because of additional $2.00 for international users. If Amazon will start same level support in Japanese market, Kindle could be a good challenger against paid digital manga on Japanese cellphones.

See Also:

A Japanese blogger Hide's report how he published Japanese novel as image [J]

Ume's twitter [J]

Ume's Dai Tokyo Toybox in Japanese on Amazon Japan

Tags: Japan, USA by Akky Akimoto
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