The award-presenting ceremony of the Mashup Awards 6[J], an annual web service development contest organized by a bunch of Japanese web companies, took place in Tokyo yesterday, where the venue was packed with hundreds of presenters and an audience.   This contest literally aims at letting participants compete their skills in developing a web service by using public third-party APIs selected by the contest organizer.    222 APIs were allowed to be used to develop a mash-up service, and 544 web services have been submitted for the contest during the two months of the application period.

Let’s see some of excellent services that have won awards.

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Emiri System (The Grand Prix) [J]

Emiri System was originally developed by Tetsuro Ueda a.k.a. Emiri Papa for recording the growth of his daughter Emiri.  It became a social network for sharing updates among nursing parents about their child-care, children’s growth and development.  It has engaged 3,300 users from 23 countries, stored 1.33million-day dairy updates, 3.7 million pictures and 60,000 videos.  In order to enhance the convenience and allow the users to enjoy the experience anywhere at anytime, he has integrated it with many web services.

Using third-party APIs: AdobeAir, Applicast (an widget for Sony’s LCD TV), Web Payment Standard API, Yahoo Japan’s OpenID

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Get-Relief Rader (Excellent Award)

Get-Relief Rader is a location-based iPhone app developed by Tokyo-based tech-startup Kayac (related Asiajin stories). By Establishing a pair with someone else using the app (via Bluetooth), a user can find where the other of the pair is located very roughly without launching the app (running on background).   Using the app between a couple may contribute to affair proof their marriage.

Using third-party APIs: Google Maps API

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Tag Tansu (Excellent Award) [J]

Tag Tansu is a closet that allows you to upload pictures of your clothing only by hanging a piece on a hook and sort it out.   It’s invented by tsuka_pan & sgss who has won the juries’ special prize with Cast Oven at the previous event.  An RFID tag embedded on the neck of the hanger tells the sensor what kind of clothing and the pictures will be tagged with the category automatically.   By integrating with a social network, you will be allowed to ask your friends about which clothing you wear, and it prevents you from buying something similar designed to what you have because you can check your collection with your cellphone at boutiques.

Using third-party APIs: Adobe AIR

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Teritori (Excellent Award) [J]

Teritori, which is named after territory, is a social game in which the aim is to occupy the other’s home base by using location profiles.  It is a web app and can be used on the iPhone and the Android 2.x handsets.   You can found VIRTUALLY your own lands on the game at your REAL favorite spots, and fight against the others by spy infiltration and reconnaissance activities.

Using third-party APIs: Google Maps API

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Twiccha (Excellent Award) [J]

Twiccha, named after Twitter and chat, is a web service literally that allows you chat with someone only with your Twitter account.  You can keep chatting while watching NHK’s news clips[J] and satellite broadcaster BS Japan’s TV show “Deki-Biji[J]” and reading Yahoo Japan news in the chat room.  Developed by Tokyo-based tech start-up Crossfader[J].

Using third-party APIs: Twitter, YouTube, Ustream

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There were too many awards presenting in each category of web services, we can’t cover them all in this single post. You can check all 544 entries through this link[J].

See Also:

• MA5: Mashing Up A Variety Of APIs Makes A Lot Of Fun

Tags: Community, Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Japanese sports newspaper Nikkan Sports reported [J] on December 4th, Saturday morning that Tokyo Yakult Swallows, one of 12 professional baseball team in Japan’s top league Nippon Professional Baseball(NPB), is planning to sell itself to web service company CyberAgent (Asiajin), which runs Ameba blog, Pigu(Japan)/Pico(US), etc.

Yakult, a beverage company who owns and has been managing the Swallows for 41 years, issued a denial statement [J] that they do not think sell-out with any companies on the same day. CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita also denied by saying “There were no contact from Yakult, so we never planned.”, also telling “We must admit that our current annual operating profits, around 10 billion yen, is too small to have a NPB baseball team. It is too early.” with showing interest to the idea itself.

Fujita himself posted a photo of the Nikkan Sports reporting the rumor over TwitterTwitter.

No other mainstream media followed this Nikkan Sport’s “scoop”, so both saying there were no talk is likely to be truth.

How much having baseball team means in Japan

Historically, 12 owner seats of NPB are thought as one of the most effective promotion method for Japanese companies. In NPB, different from U.S. major league and many other professional sports leagues like football, basketball, hockey, teams can have company or brand name, such like Yakult Swallows. And that name are used everywhere when baseball game results are reported, on newspaper and TV. Even on public broadcasting NHK, who strictly avoid to tell companies name in their programs, call the team names (= company names) every day on each news. FYI, Japan Football Association, which formed professional league later, learned from West so the soccer teams are not allowed to have company names. As baseball is the most popular sports, having a team has massive publicity power. Imagine if St. Louis Cardinals were called Budweiser Cardinals, how could that have changed the sports and advertising business?

Owners of the teams have been changing, reflects each era’s major industry, as keeping a team requires a lot of money and huge demand on publicity to all Japanese. After the war, majority of the owner companies were railway companies and newspaper companies. Later in 60′s-70′s, more food companies bought teams. Around 90′s, a leasing company and a super market chain store joined.

It is in 2005 when some IT companies got on the bandwagon. Softbank purchased Hawks. Rakuten and Livedoor competed, Rakuten won and owned Golden Eagles. Those stories were reported also in English at that time. (Business Week) I could say that it really spread Rakuten’s name to the people who do not use the web much.

Although this Nikkan Sports’ overeager “schoop” is not supposed to be true by many readers, and it seems there were no deep discussion Yakult and CyberAgent, it is unknown that there was not a speck of talk, nor attempt to contact from either side.

CyberAgent is fairly big among Japanese web companies (see Netindex ranking to see their market value, it is bigger than Mixi). If web/software companies will lead the baseball owner business in near future, like 1/3 teams were owned by railway companies in 1950′s, they are one possible player.

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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