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November 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 1)

Early part of November news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 2)

There were some big English blogs covered recent Hatsune Miku live and some people might see the virtual Vocaloid singer news first time. You may also want to check our past covers;

2010-06, when she beat out Lady Gaga on Japanese ranking: Computer-Synthesized Vocal Album Tops The Japanese Chart First In History

2009-08, when she held the first "live": Virtual Singer Application Vocaloid Played Her First “Live” for 25,000 Fans

And moreHatsune Miku news on Asiajin [En].

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

Tags: Japan IT Links by Akky Akimoto
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Nico Nico Douga Turns In The Black In Full-year Result And Plans New Office In Harajuku

Dwango[J], the parent of the company running Japan's largest video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J], announced its full-year consolidated financial statements (Oct. 2009 thru Sep. 2010) last week, which showed us Nico Nico Douga had turned in the black for the first time in their full-year result.   (In their monthly earnings, it already turned in the black  last March.)

They unveiled the following financial results and their user attributes.

Financial results:

Net sales: JPY1.846B (=USD23.1M)

  • Premium membership: JPY1.457B (=USD18.2M)
  • Ad sales: JPY257M (=USD3.2M)
  • Affiliate sales: JPY48M (=USD0.6M)
  • Reward points sales and others: JPY84M (=USD1.1M)

Operating income: JPY115M (=USD1.4M)

User attributes:

<Membership>

  • Free membership: 18.6M users
  • Premium membership(charged): 0.98M users
  • Mobile membership: 5.58M users

(The number of premium membership users reached 1M on October 13th, this year.)

<Gender>

  • Male: 68%
  • Female 32%

<Generation>

  • 10s: 21.7%
  • 20s: 45.0%
  • 30s: 21.0%
  • 40s: 8.0%
  • 50s: 2.2%

Those in their 20s who have signed up with Nico Nico Douga shares 60% of the entire population of Japanese in their 20s.

<Access stats>

  • Average daily page view: 80.56M
  • Average daily visitors: 2.82M
  • Average time spent per visit: 38.5mins

Meanwhile, Nico Nico Douga announced they would open their new office next month in Takeshita Dori, which is a pedestrian-only street lined with fashion boutiques in Harajuku.  The office has a studio, a coffee shop and souvenir shops selling merchandise designed by artists who have been aired and spotlighted on NicoNico Douga.


大きな地図で見る

Tags: Company, Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Kadokawa To Launch E-Book Distribution Platform; Some Novelists Can’t Wait And Launch Their Own

Kadokawa Shoten Publishing[J] and its subsidiaries, which are known for having published many comic titles and magazines, announced on Friday that they would launch an e-book distribution platform called Book Walker next month.

Approximately 100 titles will be available for the iPhone and the iPad users at the launch of the platform, and 20 titles will be added every week thereafter.   They expect some 1,000 titles are ready not only for the iPhone and the iPad users but also for the Android and PC users by next July and revenue of USD125M in the year of 2014.

15 companies belonging to the group are expected to participate the platform, and provide e-book, videos/films, character merchandise and social game apps on it.   Third-party publishers can also join it to sell their content.   "We aim at establishing a business model that allows paper-printed books and e-books to co-exist.", Kadogawa Contents Gate[J] director Yoichi Yasumoto says.  For example, they will provide extra content on the platform only to those who have purchased a book at a bookstore.   The company emphasizes the platform will never break the existing business relationship between publishers and bookstores.

Book Walker is intended to be integrated with social media to strengthen marketing efforts, and Kadokawa tied up with Japan's largest video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J] as the first attempt of their social media integration.   Nico Nico Douga is expected to introduce a viewer app that enables to not only read e-books on the platform but also check up reader reviews which are overlapped on the e-book viewing screen just like viewer reviews on Nico Nico Douga.

The company is expecting to enhancing the platform that enables to distribute e-books in English and Chinese languages for reaching out Japanese literature and comic fans outside the country.

Meanwhile, Japanese popular novelist Ryu Murakami who is known for having won the Akutagawa prize with his first work Almost Transparent Blue, launched his own e-book publisher called G2010 in early this month.   The company deals with many titles authored by several well-known novelists including Mr. Murakami, exclusively online.  "Publishing companies have professionals on creating paper-printed books, but neither on e-books.   For having good partnerships with many publishers, we've decided not to tie up with a specific publisher.", he says.

See Also:

Tags: Company, Japan, New Service, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Apple Partners With Dentsu To Boost Smartphone Ad Business In Japan

The world's largest ad agency Dentsu announced it had partnered with Apple for the sales of smartphone ad network iAd in Japan.   Dentsu will start the sales in early 2011, and their subsidiary Cyber Communications Inc. provides ad content production services including media planning.

iAd is installed on iOS4, which is the latest edition of the iPhone platform, and allows the iPhone users to purchase goods, apps and content advertised while playing another apps.   The iPhone app developer participating in the ad network can receive a reward, which is 60% of the entire revenue earned through ads placed on his/her apps.

Apple took over Quattro Wireless last January for launching the iAd network in North America, and is expecting Dentsu will play the same role that Quattro does for launching their new business in Japan through the partnership.

Tags: Company, News, Service by Masaru IKEDA
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Idol Event In Ameba Pigg Gathers 15,000 Users Online

An idol unit "Team Pigg Mint" held a gig in Japanese virtual world "Ameba Pigg" [J] on November 3rd.

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Team Pigg Mint is an unit selected from members of popular girls group "AKB48" [J], who has been running long-term promotion in Ameba Pigg.

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The above are virtual goods to reproduce the same fashion with their stage costumes.

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These are screen shots of their concert.

Of course, "real" Team Pigg Mint members operated the Team Pigg Mint avatars.


The "real life" Team Pigg Mint members.

Ameba Pigg's events are very popular, and 15,000 users gathered in this event. Ameba Pigg's developer company Cyber Agent sold the event tickets on a limited sales for 150 yen, which were sold out!

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Whenever Ameba Pigg events happens, they prepare a lot of virtual "halls"(server). (Whichever hall an user log in, you can watch the same artists' avatar.) But, this was the first time that over 10,000 audiences attended for the same event simultaneously. Perhaps, that amount of attendees might be the first time in Japanese virtual world business history, too.

See Also:

[Report] AKB48 Team Pigg Mint Live Held In Ameba Pigg - 15,000 Joined [J] (I wrote this!)

Ameba Pigg Limited Live Went Superb! - Cyber Agent's press blog [J]

Tags: Japan by Chiho Komoriya
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