Nikkei Trendy Net reported [J] that Facebook Head of International Growth Javier Olivan told them Facebook's Japan branch status and their first goal, specially customized site for Japanese cellphone.

According to the report, Facebook already opened their Tokyo office on February 2nd, which was announced in last fall (our report). The main task of them is to make a Japanese cellphone version of Facebook to chase Japanese social networking services. The number of Japanese Facebook users is about 1 million, whilst the No.1 Mixi holds about 18 million.

The name of the new Japan office head, who "has 10 years of experience in Japan's largest internet company for decade", will be public soon. May the "largest internet company" be Yahoo! Japan?

In 2008, I was asked if Facebook comes to Japan, by an English media. the comments were not used so I wrote them on Asiajin. On it I predicted that Facebook wouldn't understand cellphone importance in Japanese market, which turned out to be wrong.

Thanks for the new link kwmr.

[Update 2010-08-09] The Japanese cellphone version is released and being tested.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, USA by Akky Akimoto
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So-net SNS, one of the largest free hosting of user generated social networking services in Japan, announced [J] their termination of service in June.

# SNS stands for "Social Networking Service", which is often used in Japanese when mentioning Mixi, Gree, etc. Some people even use SNS without knowing what it came from.

So-net, a portal site company in Sony group, began So-net SNS in June 2006 by using Japanese, PHP-based open source social networking service package OpenPNE.

In Japan, there are other competitors who provide free social networking service hosting such like FC2 SNS, Social Park, Nanoty, People SNS, etc. But overall, most people seem comfortable with community feature in Mixi.

See Also:

So-net SNS beta launch news on CNET japan in 2006 [J]

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Nikkei Business online reported [J] that major radio stations in greater Tokyo and Osaka area gathered to open a new website which offers the same programs as their broadcasting.

They are 6 from Tokyo (TBS Radio, Nippon Hoso, Bunka Hoso, FM Tokyo, J-WAVE, Inter FM), 6 from Osaka (ABC、MBS、OBC、FMO、FM802、FMcocolo) and Nikkei Radio on short wave.

Most of the Tokyo's one are so-called "key station" which provides programs to local countryside radio stations, and Osaka's are "sub-key station". Those 13 had formed a IP simulcast council in last December [J]. This move is also supported by giant ad agent Dentsu. They already cleared copyrights issues with rights holders like JASRAC(Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers), JAAA(Japan Advertising Agencies Association) and talent agencies, as Nikkei Business says.

Test will begin in March under the domain "radiko.jp" [J]. The site uses Flash for streaming, and restrict access from other areas than greater Tokyo and Osaka by checking IP address.

A simulcast radio website SimulRadio [J] was opened by small and local stations in 2008, but major stations were reluctant for long years.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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News on the latter half of January 2010 which we did not write as a dedicated article. Part 1 is here.

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• METI Lottery In Exchange For Used Cellphone Campaign Collaborates Hatsune Miku
• Chinese Guy In Saitama Arrested By Providing Proxy Servers For Chinese Gamers To Play (and earn by RMT) Japanese Online Game
• Harlequin Novels On Nintendo DS
• Kobe-based sports tabloid Daily Sports to start publishing e-edition.
• "Onsei Ninshiki Fusen ST", iPhone App to Memo by speech-recognition
• Mekiki's Patent Lawsuits Against Facebook Explained By American Lawfirm
• Sekai Camera's Tonchi Dot and 5 companies Runs St. Valentein Day's AR Event at Shibuya
• KDDI says 10 million cellphone sale this fiscal year will be difficult, at 3Q report
• Transcosmos Sells DART Business To Google, Lawsuit To Be Dissolved
• Twitter Japanese Mobile Site Adds Cellphone-mail-to-tweet function
• Nifty Lanches Cloud Service
• Sending Thousands of Origami Crane to Haiti Project On Mixi Causes controversy on Japanese web
• Over 200km Freekick Machine
• Kakaku.com launches Android app
• Two Fishing Boats In Tokyo Bay Starts To Tweet 1 2
• Mobage Open Platform begins, 92 apps by 40 companies at the launch day
• TV Tokyo's Documentary Went Too Far On Taking Sony Walkman's (one month) Takeover Against iPod
• Digital Garage Makes Another Investment To Twitter
• Dentsu purchases Innovation Interactive [English]
• University of Tokyo associate professor complained on Google Japan's Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) applied to students during the recruitment
• Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications starts the internet contents self-rating experiment
• January Forbes Asia Cover Features Gree Yoshikazu Tanaka
• A blogger counts how many common apps on Mixi Appli and Mobage Appli platforms. 36 out of 86 Mobage Apps are also on Mixi
• CyberAgent CEO admitted (their Twitter Clone) Failed to investors, but he has not given up
• Softbank Continues Free iPhone 3GS Plan
• KDDI, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners and Hokkaido Broadcasting To Hold An AR Event At Sapporo Yukimatsuri
• Docomo President Shows Interest In iPad At 3Q Fiscal Report Meeting
• Thanko's 80 ports USB Charger
• A new Japanese font Kazuraki fully-proportional in both writing directions
• Asahi writes about Twitter user reports from Stopped Shinkansen train

Please let us know if you think we should write details on any news above.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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The recession, almost no IPOs, structural shortcomings, not enough hot startups to invest in: The Japanese venture capital industry is in a critical situation. The current state of affairs forces companies that have money to pump into promising ventures to go new ways, and one of these is a joint initiative by a total of eleven companies [JP] from Japan's Internet sector.

Dubbed Social Application Forum (SAF) [JP], the initiative is led by advertising company Adways [JP] and venture capital firm ngi group. The aim is to invest in startups working on social apps that can be distributed worldwide, for example on Facebook. SAF's official slogan is "From Japan, to the world".

In other words, the social application bubble just got bigger. The Nikkei is reporting that the investors are ready to start supporting up to 50 different startups working on those apps within this year. The startups will receive marketing and PR support, technical "infrastructure" and money.

According to the Nikkei, the budget for 2010 is 1 billion yen ($11 million). The 11 investors plan to get together once per month to review business plans the startups handed in and choose which ones to support.

The SAF is obviously aimed at finding the Japanese Zynga, but I have my doubts (for a number of reasons) this framework is the best approach to nurture a globally competitive app provider. But Asiajin is more than happy to cover interesting stuff (if there is any) coming out of this initiative in the future even though I believe the apps will land on Mixi and other Japanese sites.

Tags: Japan, News by Serkan Toto
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