Yahoo Japan, the country’s biggest website with 1.6 billion page views per day, will enter a partnership with Cookpad, a popular recipe site, according to a report by business daily The Nikkei.

Much like Yahoo in the US, Yahoo Japan runs a number of vertical services under its portal: one of them, Yahoo Recipe, will be closed by the end of the year, The Nikkei says.

Under the agreement, the “recipe” link will lead to Cookpad.com instead – even though it’s apparently not fixed yet when exactly that will happen. The Nikkei says that Yahoo Japan will also take over part of Cookpad’s ad sales and offer the Yahoo Japan Wallet payment system for paid users of the service (for about US$3.80, those members can bookmark more recipes, have better access to the site on mobile devices, etc.).

According to the report, Yahoo Japan Recipe draws 5 million users per month currently. But it seems the service, which is linked to from the Yahoo Japan homepage, wasn’t successful enough for big Y: Cookpad boasts three times that number currently.

Cookpad, as the first company of its kind, went IPO three years ago. The company was moved to the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December last year.

Cookpad’s strongest competitor is Rakuten Recipe, a service offered by e-commerce powerhouse Rakuten.

Tags: Japan, News by Serkan Toto
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Second News Inc. has opened the news site IRORIO, [J] where news readers can develop their own avatar by posting their opinions.

IRORIO is a news site which delivers tri-monthly news from in and out of Japan, of many genres, including politics, economy, society, entertainment, technology, lifestyle, etc.  Readers can enjoy a “training game” where they advance their own character by posting their personal opinions (comments) about pertinent news.  Characters start out as an ordinary entry level staffer in the company.  Each time a reader posts a comment on the news a pair of dice are rolled, and depending on the result a variety of life simulation events will hapen to the character, such as career advancement or marriage.  Events result in character parameter fluctuations, allow the acquisition of a great variety of items, and also a function for competing for ranking with other users.  Also, by raising character stats, it’s possible to switch to different jobs like teacher, police officer, chef, government official, entrepeneur, or comedian.

Tags: Social game, VSMedia by Chiho Komoriya
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