We reported that a Japanese web geeks' icon Naoya Ito's move on September 1st from Hatena to the No.1 social networking service Gree, but he was not the only one. There are several big names reported to leave and/or enter web/IT companies in Japan around the beginning of September 2010.

Poupee Girl CEO

Yoshimi Morinaga, a CEO who ran a popular girls avatar fashion site poupee girl, was reported to disappear her name from the executive list on a company website.

On September 1st, some online media reported that 24-year old Hisayo Okada (photo from her blog, left person) takes the CEO position.

Morinaga is reported her resignation Poupee Girl/Cyber Agent group. She said she is planning to start a new web service. Morinaga became the Poupee Girl CEO at her age of 25. CyberAgent is known to assign young employees who only have few years work experience after graduation to head o subsidiaries, which is rare in Japan.

MySQL/Sun/Oracle to DeNA

MATSUNOBU Yoshinori, who is known as a top-notch Japanese MySQL expert, who had worked for MySQL but the company was bought by Sun, then by Oracle, left there to Join a social game networking service DeNA.

(photo by okyuu.com)

On his blog, he was also asked by companies in Europe and U.S.A but DeNA valued him very well. He wrote that DeNA is one of the heaviest MySQL user companies around the world so he would keep contributing MySQL community.

One left Hatena, another joined

Shigeaki Yazaki, an editor of Nikkei BP joins Hatena. On his personal blog, he said that he thinks even Hatena, whose main contents are user-generated, needs editing.

(photo by Nikkei IT Pro)

Other moves

A tech blogger @namikawa, whose blog on server/cloud topics, declared that he joined CyberAgent as a backend engineer for Ameba service.

Popular journalist/Twitter user @tsuda becomes DeNA's official recruiter. He started tweeting about Mobage-Town hiring info every day.

A search/language researcher Masato Hagiwara (@mhagiwara) left Baidu Japan. In his case, it is not know if he will work again soon.

Stimulated by social game networks and social services players like Gree, DeNA and Dwango, mobility of human resources in Japanese web industry seems more active recently.

I respect all of their new challenges. Good luck!

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Singapore-based startup PostSell has one goal: boosting sales of online retailers through product recommendations in email receipts. In other words, it's just like Amazon's “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” being built into emails that you get from shops after buying something online.

What's interesting is that PostSell says 70% of buyers actually open those order confirmation emails, offering room for personalized product recommendations to make buyers come back.

The free upselling tool of the same name is especially geared towards smaller online shops with 50+ stock-keeping units, and the company promises it's dead-simple to use - on any shopping cart system out there. All that retailers need to do is to send their receipts through PostSell without setups, configurations or any kind of programming.

You can sign up for a preview here, and check PostSell's company blog for more information on how to boost sales through email.

The startup has come out of the first Founder Institute Singapore program, which started earlier this year. More info on how that came about can be found here.

Tags: New Service, Singapore by Serkan Toto
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There's one more thing to tell you on Mixi[J].

Mixi upgraded the interface that has been introduced for two years to those who have partnered, and introduced two APIs - "mixi Plugin[J]" and "mixi Graph APIs[J]" on Friday.   mixi Graph APIs are designed for the third parties to integrate their social web services and apps with Mixi.   mixi Plugin is a set of HTML codes that allows you to integrate your website with Mixi.

mixi Graph APIs consist of:

• People API - Allows to get a list of someone's Mixi friends.
• Groups API - Allows to get a list of "Group" which is a classification that someone have sort out his/her Mixi friends.
• People lookup API - Allows to retrieve a profile of someone's Mixi friend by his/her e-mail address.
• Voice API - Allows to integrate your app with Mixi Voice (Mixi's Twitter-like service)
• Updates API - Allows to get someone's feed telling his/her Mixi friend's activity updates.

These APIs are open only to those who have completed the partner registration at this time, but expected to be available for anyone.  Mixi Check API, that enables to integrate your website with Mixi and share it with your Mixi friends - a feature like Facebook's "Share" and Digg, was introduced last Monday, which is available for the partners so far but expected to be completely open to all in the near future.

mixi Plugin consist of:

• mixi Check button - Same as "Share" button on Facebook.
• Simple Post - Allows to post a comment on your website to Mixi Diary or Mixi Calendar.

Anyone is allowed to use mixi Plugin on his/her blog or website if a check key is obtained.   50 major web services from 30 companies including Rakuten, Yahoo Japan[J], DeNA(Mobage-Town), Hatena[J], EC Navi[J] and Kakaku.com[J] have completed the integration of mixi Plugin or mixi Graph API.   DeNA allows their social network users to post a link of Mobage's games and novels to Mixi.   DeNA's COO Isao Moriyasu says, "Mixi and DeNA are working on a jointly launch of new social web services."   Mixi and Mobage are always considered as competitors, but he pointed out, "Mixi just wants to take the top of the real social graph and we(DeNA) are focusing on developing the social game platform.  The two companies want different layers of users, and our partnership will never cause a conflict of interests."

Mixi expects to partner with hardware manufacturers and develop digital appliances and electronic devices which can be connected to the service's social graph.   Panasonic is developing a DVD recorder that allows you to let your friends know what TV programs you've reserved to record via Mixi.

Tags: Japan, New Service, News by Masaru IKEDA
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It's very hard to churn out truly unique web services these days, but here's a new one from Japan: InMyBag, which asks one question: "What's in your bag?" The idea is to shoot a picture (or movie) of stuff you carry in the bags you use privately, for business, travel, sports etc. and share the contents with others.

Here's a screenshot that shows the business bag of an "art director" (click to enlarge or go directly to the page):

If you ask what kind of problem InMyBag solves, I don't have a good answer (apart from offering a certain fun factor), but the service itself explains that it helps you discover items based on a set of different criteria.

You need to specify your occupation when you sign up, choose a category for your bag (again: business, travel etc.) upon submission and tag items. That means once enough people have signed up, InMyBag can help you find out what items people in specific occupations should carry in their bags, the reasoning goes.

InMyBag is available in English and Japanese. The service launched earlier this week.

Tags: Japan, New Service by Serkan Toto
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Mixi[J], needless to say, one of Japan's largest social networks, had a briefing conference entitled Mixi Meetup 2010 today, announced they had launched a social app platform for their smartphone-optimized user interface called mixi Touch.

As of today, the following social apps are available on the platform.
(Links given to app names in the list below may take you to app pages, which works only with smartphone devices.  You're requested to enter Mixi username and password.)

• Machitsuku "build up a town" by Unoh which is is known for having been acquired by Zynga.

• Kyabakura Wars, Koishite Cereb by Gumi[J]
  (A virtual hostessing game at Japanese-style nightclub "Kyabakura" where men pay to drink with young girls for a period of time.)

• Minna de Kentei by Community Factory[J]
  (a quiz game allowing you to compete with your Mixi friends.)

• MyMiku Tsushimbo by Soratobu[J]
  (Sort out your Mixi friends by personality and share it with others.)
• Kyo no Meigen "Remark of the Day" (by Soratobu[J])
• Maru-Batsu by Soratobu[J]
  (An yes/no-based simple quiz game)

• Shindan no Izumi by Graphio
  (Check up your mental age in dating with boyfriend/girlfriend etc.)

• Asa kara Yoru made 12 Seiza Ranking by Index[J]
  (An astrology ranking app, enjoy horoscopes throughout the day.)

• Mainichi Holi-day by Applica
  (Dig your garden and bury items with your Mixi friends)

The new platform enables credit card purchase for buying virtual items in the social apps.   The company's CEO Kenji Kasahara says, "Mixi became the world's first social app platform allowing users to access from PCs, feature phones and smartphones."

See Also:

• Mixi Launches Social App Service For Cellphone Users
• Mixi Partners With Renren and CyWorld – 3 Asian Major Social Networks Cooperate

Tags: Japan, New Service, News by Masaru IKEDA
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