After the unexpected collaboration announcement by Google and AKB48 project yesterday, Japanese Google+ scene is very reactivated.

The word by Google’s product VP Bradley Horowitz, who is visiting Japan (likely) for the AKB48 announcement is good how huge it is in Japan,

If you don’t know AKB48, you don’t live in Japan (or in fact, many other parts of Asia.) They are phenomenon that might be equivalent to the Beatles + American Idol + the Spice Girls + Justin Timberlake… They are a roster of more than 200 hand-selected performers who are the subject of huge media attention, and support from millions of devoted fans.

According to Google+ Ranking by UserLocal, top Japanese Google+ user by number of followers totally replaced with AKB48 girls. UserLocal also set up an AKB48-only followers ranking as it is the biggest interest on Japanese G+.

7 of the top 10(#2, #3 and #5-#9) are now AKB48 members who began Google+ yesterday. 20 AKBs are ranked in top 30. I was at around 25th before AKB but now at 67th after 42 AKBs

In compare to Twitter, where the top rankers boast million followers, the most followed Japanese user only has sub-40K followers. When you think the influence of TV, it is not strange and the ranking will be soon occupied all by AKB48, or other TV celebrities may ride the bandwagon from Twitter and Ameblo.

This Google+’s move with AKB48 definitely let many ordinal people know and join Google+, but I am not sure how much Google expected this beforehand.

5 languages translation

As reported, their messages on Google+ are being translated into 5 languages. It is done by a Google user AKB48 Translator to translating some (not all) of top AKB48 members’ messages into 5 (or 6, as it seems to write both in Simplified and Traditional Chinese) languages like this.

[Update 2012-03-26] UserLocal seemed to split the ranking to “AKB” and “individuals”, as the 60th ranked AKB48 member has more followers than the top individual, Google+ followed ranking must become just the AKB48 popularity ranking.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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A Tokyo guy whose name is Ryoma Sakamoto complained on Twitter that he had been banned from Facebook as he was using a fake name.

http://twitter.com/ryomanow/status/144646097938288640

“I was suddenly unable to access Facebook. ‘Your account was suspended because your using name is not a real name’, which is not true…”

He tweeted “Facebook is asking him to submit two images of identity, when I could rent a video and buy a cellphone with only one ID.”

His employer, a Tokyo-based publisher Shufu no Tomo sha confirmed [J] that he is a real Ryoma Sakamoto and belongs to a sales division on its company PR Twitter account.

Another Ryoma Sakamoto is one of the most popular historic icon in Japan. NHK made a TV drama series on Sakamoto in 2010 with featuring a popular singer/actor Masaharu Fukuyama.

Sakamoto Ryoma, born in Kochi in 1835, made a great contribution to Japan’s rapid modernization which marked the end of 700 years of feudal government. The modernized nation he pictured had laws, a parliamentary system and a diplomatic office.

That banned Sakamoto’s icon photo is obviously a one in Japanese kimono which disguised the historical figure Sakamoto’s popular photo, and his blog [J] shows he is trying to impersonate the great Sakamoto. There are some other “Ryoma Sakamoto” there on Facebook.

Hat tip to @bulkneet

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) announced Wednesday it will elevate Cookpad, a Tokyo-based recipe web service operator, to the First Section from the Mothers Section effective December 15.

Moving from Mothers or the second section to the first section generally means that the company is evaluated better, stable.

Early this year, I wrote how Rakuten chased Cookpad by paying newcomers to write recipes on The Japan Times. At that point, rapidly increased number of recipe on Rakuten seemed that people changed their service by money, however, even there are enough number of recipes on Rakuten, it was only data but users seemed not to migrate.

Cookpad seems not “growing” but keeps steady.

via ITMedia [J]

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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December 8 morning, Japanese major newspapers like Yomiuri, Asahi and Nikkei, sum of the number of their print will be around 20 million issues every morning, had a full-page ad almost only with text, which is by Gree CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka.

The text is also publicized on Gree’s company page [J]. It has about 4,000 Japanese letters.

The text titled with “Making the world a better place through the power of the Internet”(English translation of which is not on the web page but was on the newspapers) is a style which Tanaka tells you by himself, starting with his memory on his youth that Japan started suffering long time economic standstill, how the Internet and Silicon Valley culture (like Netscape and Yahoo!) business and working style attracted him, how those companies from the Valley had changed the world.

The latter half is his talk how Gree began as his personal hobby after his daytime job (at early days in Rakuten, FYI), had many difficult time, how other people did not valued his and his teams challenges.

He ends the text that the only people who never give up and keep challenging have been changing the world, and (he and Gree) by learning that history, want to keep contributing society, “Making the world a better place through the power of the Internet”,

Many of those readers of major newspapers may be the farthest people who play and purchase virtual items on Gree. But they are the people who run business in regular Japanese enterprises. There are critics from traditional business that the social game companies are exploiting users as their sales and profits are soaring. By this he seems to try to impress people that Gree is just another company who serves society.

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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