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Japan’s No.1 e-Mall Rakuten Trying To Be Like Twitter/Facebook By Rakuten Profile

Japan's largest online mall company Rakuten started promoting its unknown service Rakuten Profile [J] since around October 10 to its 62 million members.

The service comes with Twitter-like "tweet", following/followers, Facebook-like "share", your profile badge on Rakuten blog,

Rakuten Profile seemed to launch without any release around August 9, 2011 [J]. There were no no news coverages recorded on Google News of August. Official Staff blog did not mention it [J], too, though the staff blog is inactive and there were only three posts in August.

Then, 11th of this month, some of Rakuten pages started showing ads linked to a promotion page of Rakuten Profile [J]. There, you can earn 5 Rakuten point by registering the profile service and connect it with your Rakuten blog. Everyone can receive the 5 point, which you may use for 5 Japanese yen (US￠4) discount.

The service logo says it is still in Beta stage.

This service introduction page [J] covers what Rakuten Profile is.

From it, Rakuten Profile is a place,

  • "to create": your profile with your hobbies, what you like, short daily messages(="tsubuyaki" = tweet)
  • "to connect": search your friends' ID then follow, or send an invitation mail
  • "to find": news as your friends interests are shown up on your timeline
  • "to share": your blog posts and news to your friends, followers

My profile page is here [J],

It also has an RSS Reader feature with "Share" button.

All entries of Rakuten blog now has "Share on Rakuten Profile" button, with other sharing buttons for Twitter, Mixi and Facebook.

Rakuten has been running another profile service Zenryaku Profile [J] since Rakuten bought it in 2002. That service has over 6 million users but majority of users are students, which can not be a main customers of online shopping stores and Rakuten did not give its "Rakuten" brand to it like it did to other services they bought.

According to the staff blog, Rakuten Profile will replace with the current profile functionality on Rakuten Blog in January 2012.

Rakuten does not look like putting much resources into this new social networking service if you compare with Facebook/Google/Twitter, but it might be necessary to have those social features integrated with its blogs and community sites to keep its users inside Rakuten services.

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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NAMCO BANDAI Release First Ever “Tamagotchi” Social Game For Mobage


NAMCO BANDAI Games, Inc. [J] has opened service of the first social game featuring “Tamagotchi” characters, “Mobage De Asobo! Tamagotchi” (Let’s play with Mobage!  Tamagotchi), an avatar-raising game for feature phones on Mobage [J].

“Mobage De Asobo! Tamagotchi” is a title combining the enjoyment of supporting the approach of the 15 year anniversary of “Tamagotchi’s” launch with social game communication.  The main target audience is the first generation of female players in their 20s and 30s who played “Tamagotchi” at first, and it’s both a nostalgic and new social game experience.

Tamagotchi iD L 15th Anniversary ver. royal pink [J]

Tamagotchi iD L pink [J]

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Tags: Japan, Social game by Chiho Komoriya
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Japan’s Web News Week 45

This week's Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article.

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 by Akky Akimoto
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Smartphone Popularity Makes Hinge Vendor Delisted

Joi's TV phonephoto © 2006 Jyri Engestrom | more info (via: Wylio)

Strawberry Corporation, a Tokyo-based Japanese hardware maker announced [J, pdf] on October 27 that the company was delisted from Osaka Security Exchange JASDAQ market, as it was helped and subsidized by Advanex.

Their anchor product is micro-sized hinges used for clam-shell type cellphone and laptop PC.

Strawberry Corporation was rumored [J] to be bankrupted in June, listed on the stocks to be watched by Osaka Security Exchange.

This is obviously affected by decreasing clam-shell type cellphone from market. In 2008, the company boasted over 50% share for cellphone in Japan. Many vendors move to sell touch-panel smartphone, which do not use the hinge parts.

The company was listed on October 25 2001, so it had been listed for 10 years and 2 days. Their decade was with Japanese feature phone's success.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Hatoful Boyfriends – Virtual Dating Game With Pigeons

Hatoful Kareshi [J] (hato=dove, kareshi=boyfriend so it is a word play of "full of pigeons boyfriend" and "heartful boyfriend") is a Japanese style text-and-image virtual school dating game for girls, except all of your school love-life targets are pigeons.

At the Saint Pigeonation School, a prestigious school but many pigeons are attending, At first you were confused by the classroom with full of pigeons' eyes, but now in your second grade (Japanese high school is 3 years from 15 yo - 18 yo), you are getting used to a school life, enjoying peaceful days... right?

You feel an emotion you have never had while spending time together. Surprising softness of pigeons nose humps.

We deliver a heartwarming love story.

Story [J]

There are 5 studens and 2 teacher pigeons, yes, pigeons, in the game you will be able to go out.

For "novice players" who can not imagine love with pigeons, the developer offer "personified" pictures for each pigeons.

For example, this character, Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane, who has a French aristocrat-pigeon father,

looks like him if he was a human being.

The application works [J] both on Windows XP and MacOS X (Windows Vista/7 are not guaranteed but may work, the site says).

Even with free version, you may date with 7 pigeons. The 500 yen Hatoful Plus has an extra character, 12 more inside-game events, more endings and gallery feature.

Here is a playing report by a fun,

As a result of popularity(?), on October 28, making of Hatoful Boyfriends audio drama CD was announced [J]. The drama features many of notable male voice actors who played in Evangelion, Yu-gi-oh, Macross, etc.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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